Peeing With the Door Open~

I think it is inevitable that after a breakup you tend to indulge in postmortem analysis of everything the came and went during your relationship. You get pissed all over again at all the slights and faults of your partner. You think about all the sweet, quiet moments that you don't get to have again and grieve. You play the 'what if' game and try and second guess your actions and wonder if any other outcome was possible..or if God/fate/karma just meant for things to happen this way. I am probably more likely than the average Joe to indulge in this backward thinking. I won't go so far as to say that I enjoy wallowing - but I am comfortable in my emotions. I had a fantastic Wednesday night wake for my failed relationship - complete with wine and American Idol - alternating being sad and being angry. I am still uncertain which one wins. I suppose it depends on when you ask me still.

In the course of this wallowing, I thought about if it was possible that I could have acted in a way that created a different ending. If I could have adjusted so that Chet and I were still annoying Cindy (hmmm...still can't remember her alias) with our cutesy facebook chatter. Without even thinking really hard I could come up with things I should have handled differently or moments where I should have talked something out instead of glossing it over - but nothing that would have changed the path we were on. Just typical duh moments that happen in all our relationships - platonic and non - that we wish we could revisit for a moment. So if I asked myself if I could have changed something concrete, the answer is no. Despite my mistakes and flaws, I always gave an honest representation of who I am and what I was looking for. I was exactly who I said I was, who I have been all along.

However - here is what I would change. Peeing with the door open.

Bear with me here for a moment and (for most of you) this will make sense shortly. When Chet and I started dating, we pretty much ran head first into this relationship. It was hard not to really...we already knew each other so there was no getting-to-know-you dating lag time. He had met my family weeks before we even kissed, so family was already involved. And people were just so freaking happy for us. Don't get me wrong - I loved the support and the enthusiasm. At first it was fantastic to have everyone be so excited. But what happens when you hear "oh-you-guys-are-perfect-together!" over and over from all your friends and family? It creates this strange, invisible pressure...to be perfect and to get it right. And I think it made us rush to this place where we were almost old-and-married....when we should have been still looking for dark corners to make out in like randy teenagers.

Enter....peeing with the door open. Chet's apartment has old doors that don't like to stay shut. Chet also has a very curious puppy that doesn't believe that you are allowed to go into a room if she can't go, too. So before we were even dating a few solid weeks, there were two choices. Play with the door forever like an idiot and jump up mid-pee to protect it from the invading puppy or surrender gracefully and pee with the open door. I am not a squeamish, shy kind of girl. The literal act of peeing with the door is not what is the point here. But there is an intimacy in sharing a bathroom. An intimacy that typically comes from time...and the sharing of sweatpants and toothbrushes. We just were not to that point. (I actually don't ever like to share my toothbrush - one boyfriend borrowed it once and I just went and bought a new one.) Of course this didn't automatically doom us, but it is just the early precursor to our habit of skipping ahead. The event that swung the tide, for me, was Vegas.

Vegas was.....awesome, fun, exhausting, and stressful. We went for Fiona and Wallace's wedding and we really did see some very cool things. We also came home with all our belongings and even some of our cash, so all in all it was a successful trip. But Vegas amped up all this pressure that was there. Now, of course, keep in mind this is my viewpoint and how I feel. If you ask Chet he may very well tell you that he just couldn't take my candles or snoring any longer. I don't know, because frankly we just don't talk well. So you will have to go to him for his side. But for me, Vegas made everything feel....hmmm...I don't even have the word for it really...'heavy' maybe? Weighty? Serious? Not because we took a trip together, but because is was ...Vegas.

So in the weeks leading up to our trip, and when we were there, and when we came back...all we heard was "are you getting married?", "did you get married?", and "when are you going to get married?". It wasn't even just one person that kept on about it - there were just so many people that liked us together or were happy for us....which is a great thing, don't get me wrong. It made me feel confident in my decision to be with Chet when all our friends and family were so certain that we were good for each other. And Chet and I were not blameless. We played it up sometimes to mess with people. It felt good to have people be excited for us and it was fun and cute....at first. But it began to pile up and create expectations - and I am a people pleaser so I began to worry and stress about expectations. I would not be exaggerating to say that I probably had about fifty conversations with curious people about where Chet and I were in regards to getting married - and we had been dating for two months at this point. It was so much pressure to place on a fledgling romance. Too much pressure. And in the last home stretch here, I really felt like I was pulled so thin that nothing was getting my best effort. Not Chet, not my family, not my home or my puppies or school. I felt like I was losing bits of my life under this pressure to be as perfect and as serious as everyone thought we were. I began to feel like a regular dinner and a movie date was my new holy grail.

So if I had to go back and do it again, I wouldn't change myself. However, I would have slowed everything down. I would have not done his laundry or taken care of his dog every night. I would have spent that time shopping online for naughty underwear and sent him texts of my favorites. I would have made him ask me out for dinner and a movie instead of meeting him at his house in pajama pants with take out. I would have stayed in that dating stage as long as possible. Instead of trying to be everything he needed - I would have just been the girl he went out with 2 nights a week and dreamed about for the rest of them. I would have resisted the urge to jump ahead. And I would have bought a heavy duty stopper for the bathroom door.