Reframing

I was lying in bed at 1:13 this morning, desperately trying to sleep, and thinking about M, and more specifically, about my attitude toward M. I really need to get over this, as analyzing the M situation has grown old for everyone, including me. I'm boring myself at this point. It's not even specifically about M any more, but I can't seem to let it go. However, since early this morning/this blog entry is clearly not the time when I am going to going to move on, here goes.

I was remembering the last time that he had slept at my apartment, and that he had deliberately left his undershirt on the couch while getting dressed, which I pointed out to him:

ridiculouschick: Are you leaving your shirt here on purpose so that I'll call you?

M: Yes, and I'm also wondering if you still respect me this morning...

(and then hug-hug and kiss-kiss and back to bed until he left an hour later)

So, with the benefit of hindsight, the road that we followed and the way that our relationship eventually ended, I've decided to reframe the conversation. I prefer it this way:

ridiculouschick: Are you leaving your shirt here on purpose so that I will sleep in it several nights in a row, and then launder it and offer it back to you and then be really, really happy when you tell me that you would like to begin keeping clothes at my apartment, and thus, you decline to take it back, and then (much) later realize that you telling me to keep the shirt is not reflective of your actual intent to continue and/or deepen our relationship, which becomes painfully apparent when you stop calling me and move to Texas without saying goodbye, after which I will decide to start wearing the shirt to bed again, which usually involves crying and not much sleep, and then one night, I will choose to employ the same shirt to clean my toilet in an odd tribute to both the movie Singles and the new way in which I would like to think of you (namely, as an asshole) which coincides with erasing all the digital pictures of us in my computer, deleting every e-mail you ever sent me, and burning the postcard that you mailed from Ireland, and all the while, wishing that you had never slept here in the first place?

See how I did that?