Dana’s stuff is moved out, and because neither of us had a complete set of anything, now the house looks weird. Like, there’s some furniture, but there’s no TV. There’s bookcases, but very few books. I am sure that I will slowly rebuild those things over time, but right now, I am just happy for silence. Dana and I both have outer layers that are bright and bubbly. Mine is completely broken. I cannot even. I don’t want to. I want to sit in this mess that I have made and WORK IT OUT. Surely there’s something I could have done that if I went back and undid it or unsaid it, things would be okay again. But that is not reality. I did a lot of things wrong, continually, every day, because they became coping mechanisms. You know it’s not right, but you do it anyway, like being the boss and not carrying smokes because you don’t have to. Somebody’s always got a cigarette for Daddy, and no one will find them on you. So are you a smoker? That’s how most people convince themselves they’re not.
I loved my sins where Argo was concerned. She was straight. Did I have an affair with another women? That’s how I convince myself I didn’t. I know it’s not right, but I do it anyway. There’s no other word or set of words that can describe my behavior except willful ignorance. In my opinion, Dana was falling down on the job and it couldn’t go anywhere with Argo, so what was the harm?
The part I always forget. The harm to me.
I felt like the fact that I always kept it in my mind that she was straight was what made it okay. I didn’t realize that by continuing to let Argo grab my attention, it was changing my heart, anyway. If I go by the axiom that loving God doesn’t change God, it changes me, then just insert Argo where God is. I did.
I am not being flippant. Argo was the human ear that received my prayers. As I told her many times, I write to God. You’re just icing.
Of course Dana was threatened by that. I was, shit! The line that kept going through my mind morning by morning was that it was getting harder and harder to feel the way I felt about Argo and be married to someone else. At first, I thought that was because of my feelings alone. That I was torturing myself. Then I realized that it wasn’t the two of us. It was the three of us. They both wanted me. They both needed me. Which one was more important? The straight one or the gay one?
Dana said that she felt like the only thing I ever needed her for was sex. Is it bad that I engineered it that way because she was too depressed to be able to give me anything else? It’s a spectrum. It is neither of these things, and yet, it is both. What I know for sure, though, is that in the case of three being a crowd, I can safely assure you it’s all true.
Stories That Are All True 