On the Rocks(11)
“I don’t know what he’s doing,” I whispered. “But I hope whatever it is is causing excruciating physical pain to his reproductive organs.” Truth be told, I did kind of know what Ben was doing. I had elevated Facebook-stalking to a science. The Internet made it possible to stay linked to people without ever seeing them, and I admit, I had developed some unhealthy cyber-habits in addition to the unhealthy eating habits. I checked his Facebook page dozens of times per day to see if he had posted new pictures, or changed his status, or written anything that could give me some insight into what he was doing. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn much, because Ben was never really much of a Facebook person. You know, except for when he used it to break up with me.
I knew it wasn’t healthy to keep tabs on someone who clearly couldn’t care less about me, and eventually I realized that the only way to get over him was to deactivate my Facebook account, because even if I didn’t stalk him, I’d definitely follow his friends. Unfortunately, Ben found other ways of staying connected to me, and now we sometimes, on occasion, emailed and texted. I’m sure qualified therapists the world over would say that also was unhealthy––which is precisely why I’d avoided seeing one. He sent me messages every once in a while, asking me how I was doing, telling me he still wanted to be friends, making me laugh and reminding me of what I’d loved about him to begin with, and I answered them. We were broken up but we were still attached, and I looked forward to hearing from him despite what he had done to me, though I had no idea why. It was so pathetic it made it hard for me to look at myself in the mirror in the morning. Truth be told, the extra twenty pounds I’d packed on didn’t help with that either.
“So what do you think?” Grace asked.
“What?” I had started to daydream again. Or more appropriately, day-nightmare.
“Are you listening to me?” she asked as she readjusted her bag on her shoulder.
“Not really. I can’t hear you above all the screaming in my head.”
“Abby, I know your grandmother left you some money when she passed away last year. Since you’re still living in your tiny walk-up apartment, I assume you haven’t ripped through the cash. I think spending it on a fun summer that you desperately need would be exactly what she wanted you to do.”
“I was planning on saving it for a rainy day. Not spending part of it on a beach house—where, coincidentally, rainy days would render it a complete waste of money.”
“Umm, Abby? It’s been raining on you for the last six months. Think about it.”
“I don’t think I’m ready,” I admitted, rubbing my temples as if I could somehow massage out the dull pain I’d been feeling for what felt like forever.
“Which is exactly why I’m giving you three months to prepare for it. Look, I don’t blame you for being miserable. If I were you, I’d be a million times worse. I don’t even know how you go to work and smile and play with those kids all day without losing your mind. Nobody wants to make you uncomfortable, but you can’t seem to snap out of this on your own, and I’m afraid you’re heading for a full-blown depression.”
“Heading for it? I collided with full-blown depression months ago. I think it’s okay, though. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the stages of grief. Stand back when anger hits, it’s going to be ugly.”
“That’s the point. I know you better than anyone, and I know you’re scared, but we need to shake up your routine a little bit, get you back out there, reintroduce you to the dating world. I think you should get out of the city. You need to expand your circle and spend some time in a place not haunted by memories of him.”
I sighed.
I felt like the upheaval of my personal life overflowed into every other area of my life and made me question everything I thought I wanted. I didn’t even know if I wanted to be a teacher anymore, and that was something that I had wanted since I was old enough to play school with my friends in my basement. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. I take great pride in knowing that I’m helping to mold a future generation of leaders at a prestigious Catholic nursery school in the Back Bay. But after ten years and the reality check that this last year had provided, I was starting to wonder if I made any impact on the kids whatsoever. I mean, it wasn’t like I was teaching chemistry or economics or calculus. I was teaching kids not to eat glue. Most of them would be able to figure that out on their own, eventually. The last week of February I caught a girl stuffing extra Oreos into her kneesocks at snack time. So much for molding future generations of America’s leaders. Apparently, the only thing I was molding was a future generation of petty thieves with eating disorders.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it.
To add insult to oh-such-severe injury, my little sister Katie’s wedding was fast approaching. There really ought to be some kind of written rule that says little sisters are not allowed to get engaged while their big sisters are dealing with the utterly fantastic destruction of their own relationship. Now, I’m not one of those people who have an issue with a younger sister getting married before them, I swear, I’m not. I do, however, have a really big issue with wearing a pink taffeta dress and opera-length gloves in July, or anytime, really. There should be written rules against that too, but I don’t think Emily Post ever got around to tackling this specific wedding dilemma in any of her books. So all has not been quiet on the home front either, and fighting wars on two fronts is never a good idea.