While I was lying in a hospital bed with a broken leg after a car accident, my boyfriend posted pictures of himself at a party with his ex. His caption read, “Finally free from the needy drama queen and her constant demands.” We had been together for four years. I did not comment.
By this morning, my phone would not stop buzzing with desperate messages from him and calls from his mother begging me to reconsider. Okay. I had been dating Richard for four years, and it had been a journey.
Not the inspirational kind with a sunrise at the end, but the kind where the tour guide abandons you halfway up a mountain and you suddenly realize you have been carrying everyone’s backpacks the entire time. We met when I volunteered at a community garden restoration project my company was sponsoring. I was assigned to the compost team, and Richard was the team leader.
He called himself the Compost King, without a trace of irony. Even though that should have been my first warning sign, I found his enthusiasm for rotting vegetables oddly endearing. He gave this whole speech about how breaking down is only the first step toward building something beautiful, and my soft, plant-loving heart practically said, “Sign me up for this metaphor.”
Fast-forward four years, and I now realize the only thing being broken down was my self-respect.
Let me count the ways. Richard helped with rent exactly seven times in four years. My name was the only one on the lease because his credit was “temporarily damaged,” a condition that somehow remained temporary for four whole years.
He was between jobs about sixty percent of the time we were together. When he did have money, it went toward his gaming setup, his clothes, or nights out with the boys. He asked to borrow my car more often than he asked how my day was.
But I was in love, so I made excuses. He was finding himself. He had potential.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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