Finally, an update. I'm still on the train but lately I feel like its rattling and swerving and general state of bumpiness is making me sick. I can go from feeling elated after a call from him to feeling so damn defeated and beaten down and exhausted after being let down. It’s tiring. I’m tired. I’m hanging on for dear life and my arms are about to give out.
His birthday is exactly a month before mine and for his birthday last month I made him a cake. It wasn’t just any cake – I poured my heart and soul into that thing. It was the most delicious cake I’d ever eaten. I had followed the recipe to a T, believing perhaps that the more precise and the more perfect and the more level I measured out the flour, sugar, baking soda – that maybe he could see how much I cared for him. Maybe I could bake my way to his heart. Three hours and two grocery store trips later (I had to go back after burning the white chocolate chips in the microwave the first time) my masterpiece was complete.
He loved the cake. I think he was truly touched and surprised when he saw it in its overly decorated glory sitting in my fridge. I sent him home with the leftovers, which I’m pretty sure he ate in a week’s time.
I’m feeling more than ever lately that in this “relationship,” I’m living off of crumbs. I’m getting crumbs and he’s getting cake – literally and figuratively. And the thing about living off of crumbs is that you’re constantly starving for something – attention, reassurance, love, whatever it may be – and when you DO get something positive, whether it be a 45 minute phone call at the grocery store on a Sunday morning that makes you giddily walk back and forth down the shampoo aisle for a solid 25 minutes, or when he calls you ‘baby,’ or when he makes you laugh so hard your stomach hurts – it tastes like the most delicious crumb you’ve ever eaten. But that’s only because you’re famished.
A rush of serotonin is released in your brain, much like the first bite of a piece of cake, and you suddenly forget all the doubts, the emptiness, the insatiable hunger that requires actual sustenance in order to be properly fed. You hope these crumbs originate from a freshly baked cake of his own, stashed away and waiting to come out, but when you’ve been getting crumbs for over seven months, it’s safe to assume the cake either doesn’t exist or if it does – it’s gone stale.
He's there and then he's not there. He runs hot and cold. He wants and "needs" to see me one week and then disappears for the next two – including the week leading up to my birthday (it's on Sunday). I was sure he'd want to do something this week since we're both away this weekend, but he informed me yesterday he has other plans.
Seven months of crumbs. I’m starved.
