Happy First Anniversary

I wanted to marry him.

I wanted to leave him.

I wanted to forgive him.

I wanted to make him pay.

Such was my state of mind in the days after Brown's betrayal.

I felt sick to my stomach.

I had nightmares and insomnia.

I sleepwalked through work.

I cried incessantly.

He called me a few days after the truth came seeping out. At first, I let him talk to my answering machine. Then I decided to call him back. I told him that I was very angry and that I didn't have a lot to say, because I didn't want to say the wrong thing out of anger.

He asked me what I wanted to do.

"I don't know."

"Will I be the first to know?"

"Yes."

I didn't want to leave him, but I didn't want to be his fool, either. What I really wanted to do was run screaming from my life and lock myself in a dark closet.

A few days later, I called Brown and asked him to come over.

I couldn't get any words out, other than I was very upset that he had lied to me for a year and that his lies had led him to make false promises and led me to have false expectations.

"You can't stay mad at me forever. Do you want me to leave?" He wasn't being flippant. He wanted me to make a choice: forgive him and stay with him, or hate him and break up with him.

"I don't think you're even sorry."

"Yes, I am sorry." He went on to say that this was all his problem, not mine. That he wrestled with guilt for many months before he decided to tell me. That everyone except me knew how much he loved me and wanted to marry me.

Then he massaged me and massaged me and undressed me and made love to me ... while tears streamed down my face.

He let me cry. And remarked, "I hate when you cry. You always cry for a long time."

The next day I attempted to do something I'd never done in nearly all of my 28 years: I attempted to get drunk. I went to the grocery store and bought a bottle of Alizé.

And I felt good for the first time in what seemed like years.

I laughed. I danced.

I called Brown and announced that I was drunk.

I decided that I danced better drunk. That I wrote better drunk.

I even thought that maybe I should follow my Great Aunt's example and become a drunk.

It was better than crying alone in my apartment.

It was the only way I knew to celebrate the first anniversary of my first date with Brown.

(Brown Diaries Part 14 of 18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned 1-3: 1 2 3)

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