Time is a funny thing. When things are going good, time seems to fly by, right? Like has anyone taken a vacation and has said, "Time is going soooo slow?" No. It's over in the blink of an eye. But no matter what, there are still 24 hours in a day, 1440 minutes, 86400 seconds.
When it came to me and Mark, time flew by. Those 41 days felt like they were over before they started. If I knew they were going to be over so fast, I would've asked time to slow down. I would've done things differently, said different things.
When I talked to Mark, there was never enough time in the day.
When there's a 3 hour time difference, you're already losing 6 hours with someone. I'm awake 3 hours before he is and I'm in bed 3 hours before he is.
Is. Was. What am I supposed to be using? I don't know.
We talked about the time difference many times. We both said it sucked.
And I watched the clock. All the fucking time.
7 AM. I'm awake, he's still in bed.
10AM. Is he waking up, getting ready for work?
10AM - ???? I haven't heard from Mark yet.
I watched the clock all the time and noticed when he first sent me a txt, how long in between txts, when he last sent a txt. The days flew by so fucking fast. And now? Time stands still. It's only 9AM. It's only 10AM. It's only 11AM. It's only 2PM. It's only 5PM. It's only 7PM. I can't wait for 9PM, because that's what time I seem to be falling asleep lately. I don't know if it's from being mentally and emotionally exhausted, having a broken heart, or just wanting the day to (finally) be over with.
But every day that goes by, is another day I haven't heard from Mark.
When he first started talking to me again, that first week I heard from him when he first woke up and before he went to bed. But as the weeks went by, it seemed like there were days I didn't hear from him until noon, 1, 4, etc etc etc. The one day I never heard from him until 9 PM, and I pointed that out. Hardly ever did I hear from him before he went to bed anymore.
I never stopped thinking about Mark. I still do. During one of our last phone conversations, I expressed this. I said around 10AM I genuinely wondered what he was doing. By as the hours went by I curiously wondered what he was doing. And then some days it would get to the point where I frustratingly wondered what he was doing. Because some days it took him that long to txt me.
Because when someone goes hours without talking to you, 34956704 thoughts are running through your head. The big one being, why aren't they talking to me?
I told Mark I could talk to him all day, every day. I wanted to learn everything about him. I wanted to hear his voice. His laugh. I said he could read a cereal box and I'd tell him to do it again. I wanted to hear about his work. His shitty days. Some times when we talked, he would go on and on about something, and then just be like, "But, yeah... so anyways." Like he thought he was boring me. But everything was new to me, right? I wanted to hear everything. And even if I heard it 3058 times before, I would still want to hear it again.
I said I could txt him as soon as I woke up, but what was the point, because I still wouldn't hear from him for hours. I never sent him a txt when I went to bed and I never put my phone on silent when I did. I pretended like I was awake all the time so I could talk to him.
Mark has always had a demanding job. I'm not making up excuses for him, it's a fact. Playing with numbers all day, doing payroll, it's a demanding job. I get it. I joked with him one time that some days with my job I don't do anything. I screw around, play games, and leave paperwork on my desk so it looks like I'm busy.
I also told him we have two different lives. Not just with our jobs, our personal lives. I said I come home and get in the pool for hours, eventually eat dinner, watch tv and go to bed. If I have to run errands, it's right after work, and I'm still home around 4ish. If I go and get groceries, it's about once every 2 weeks and I can be done in 2 hours.
I don't sit in traffic to get to work or come home. I'm not running errands every day. I'm not working overtime. I'm not still married and juggling two people.
So I had the time to watch the clock, to wait for that first txt message, to respond within minutes (or hours, if I was in the pool). But never was I going 12 hours without talking to him. I said to him all the time, "It feels like you aren't thinking of me, like I don't matter. Why can't you txt me when you first wake up, or when you go to the bathroom, or during a lunch break, or sitting in traffic? Why don't you txt me before you go to bed anymore?"
So I get that if you're busy at work, or in meetings, you can't talk to me... but how many times a day do you look at your phone? You're choosing not to talk to me. You're choosing to leave your phone in your car and not talk to me. You're choosing to give your phone to your wife and not talk to me.
He said he was a slow texter and I said it just made me feel unimportant. Maybe he became a slow texter when things got shitty with his wife, because he didn't want to txt her, or whatever the reason was. But I expressed to him that I'm not his wife. Whatever happened to make him do what he does, he can't do that with me. I said I didn't do anything to you and you can't treat me the same way.
I just feel like we had that conversation all the time. And I kept pointing out that communication was all we had. Our fucking phones were all we had. I said to him, "What If I stopped txting you when I got done with work? So that'd be 1PM your time. How would that make you feel?" He said he would feel the same way I did.
I also said that if I chose not to talk to him, like he was choosing not to talk to me, that we would never talk to each other. Because if he woke up and I never heard from him for 6 hours, and if I went 6 hours before txting him back, we would only say 2 things to each other, because we really only had about 12 hours in a day.
I never wanted to play tit for tat with Mark, and the one day I tried, and lasted 2 hours. I always wanted to prove a point, but if I proved a point we wouldn't talk. I don't think that ever phased him. Because he was so busy or a slow texter, I'm not sure if me going 6 hours would've even phased him.
The one day when I was frustrated with him and made him call me when he first woke up, he said to me, "We talked yesterday, didn't we?" (Now that I'm recalling that, it hurts that he couldn't remember if we had talked.) So I explained to him that we do talk, every single day. But the problem was that after a certain time, I'd never hear from him again. I explained that the one day he sent me a txt at 3PM, and I never heard from him until 3PM the next day. That's a whole 24 hours. Yes, we talked every day, but I don't think he 100% understood when he came down to the hours. And I shouldn't have let this bother me, but it did (thanks to Tom).
Again, he said he understood, that he had to get better at it. He explained that sometimes he'd leave his phone in his car on purpose. Or that he was busy dealing with his wife. So I explained it just felt like I didn't matter.
It was literally a fucking circle with things and I explained it over and over and over. Every time he said he understood.
Never once did I write about any GOOD memories. And as much as I bitch, there are good memories, and I never want to forget them. Years from now, don't I want to be able to go back and read them? Years from now, will I still be single with no kids? Will I be with another guy, married or not married, with kids or without kids? Will I be with Mark, married or not married, with kids or without kids?
During one of our phone conversations he said "up shit creek" but pronounced the 'creek' like 'crick' and I said around here we say it like 'crick' but one time at work we had a discussion where they pronounced it like 'creek' and I said that made no sense. So one time we were talking about weather and I said we getting so much rain this year, but last year it was so hot and dry we didn't have to mow lawns for a month and the creeks were all dried up. But I pronounced it like crick and he pointed it out and joked about it.
And it seemed like we talked about the weather all the fucking time. Because everyone knows if you have nothing better to talk about, talk about the weather. But I don't think that's how it was with us. I think we talked about the weather because of me being able to swim, or the droughts out in CA. I remember weeks ago, asking Mark what his favorite season was. He never did tell me, but I want to say it's not Summer. Because he complained how it was hot out. He said when he went to Vegas it was in September and it was hot. He has no idea what my favorite season is. It's Summer, Mark. My favorite season is Summer...
I finally know that his favorite food is steak and potatoes, or lasagna. I know he likes Imagine Dragons, The Offspring, and some other band I never even heard of. (But I did look them up on Youtube, and they seem like a band I would've liked.) I know he likes The Simpsons. I know he likes coffee ice cream, but as a kid it was french vanilla. I know he has no tattoos, that he prefers dogs over cats. I know he was a lifeguard at some point. I know that he doesn't like driving long distances at night anymore.
But I feel like that's the extent of it. And all of these things I learned about in 42 days. I never knew any of this stuff within the last 15 years. Some of these things were asked, and other things just came up in conversation.
Mark tried, but he didn't try hard enough.
I went to a Hanson concert exactly 4 weeks ago. He sent me a txt in the morning, telling me to have fun. We talked here and there during my drive down and then before the concert started. He asked why I wasn't staying over night, because I told him I wouldn't get home until 4AM. I said I would rather get home at 4AM, then at 2PM, and that traffic would be better at night. I said he should call me and help me stay awake.
He did call me. At midnight. When I finally decided to stop to get gas, pee, and get something to eat. I told him this and that I would call him back in 15 minutes. I did. I called him back as soon as I got back on the road and he didn't answer. I sent him a txt and never heard from him again. So the next day I was pissed, right? And I told him this. I asked why he didn't call me back. He said he fell asleep around 10:30 (his time). I said that was 90 minutes after he first called me, about 70 minutes after I tried calling him back.
2 weeks ago, on a Saturday, Mark called me in the afternoon, after I said I wanted to call him, but since I hadn't heard anything in 6 hours, I wasn't going to put in more effort. So he called me, and explained he tried calling earlier and his phone said the call couldn't be completed. Why didn't he try calling again? Why didn't he wait a minute, 5, 10, and try calling again?
So this goes into the next day, right? When he left his phone somewhere else, and tried calling me, and said the call wouldn't go through. So I was pissed and fired off a txt (2 hours later) that said it boggled me that he didn't try again. So... he didn't try hard enough. Or maybe he just didn't want to try hard enough.
But again... shitty memories, right?
I remember the Wednesday he called me during my dinner break. I was annoyed earlier when he said he'd make time to hear me cum, but couldn't make the time to call me. But he did. He found time to call me and we talked for 20 minutes. But... I never heard from him again that day. I finally heard back the next day and he said he came twice after talking to me.
And that's how it was with us. He tried so fucking hard, and I thought things were ok, and then he'd choose not to talk to me, I got pissed/frustrated/annoyed, I called him out on it, and it started over again. He tried, we were ok, then we weren't, annoyed. Over and over and over.
I TOLD HIM THIS!!!!!!!!!!!
Things shouldn't have been that fucking hard. If I didn't became so fucking attached, if he had tried just a little bit harder, would we still be talking?
It seems like a lot of good memories start out good, and end up being shitty.
I miss hearing him laugh. I didn't hear it enough.
I miss him so much. Mark, I miss you so much.
Just one txt. Just a 1 minute phone call. That's all I want. |
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