To follow up on the story I was telling in “Stuck in the Pressure Cooker” just now….
————————
In order to justify some of the goofball things he does (like drinking a whole fifth of Jack in one evening and letting his friend follow him around with a video camera), E always likes to say “Live life! We could die tomorrow!” So, the end of the letter I put with his stuff read like this:

Either way, I hope you do learn to stand up for yourself. I hope it works out for you and you get what you really want and need out of life. I hope you figure out what that is – because today might be the end of your life, or you might live for a hundred years. Today might be shit but the hundred years could be great. It doesn’t hurt to think of it both ways sometimes.

The end of the E story today is that I told him I wasn’t fighting for this relationship this time. I wasn’t fighting to get him back just to have this happen again, and if he wanted to try again with me then he was going to have to ask for it and make some serious changes. But I told his also that no matter how much he hurt me and made me cry, that didn’t make him stupid or hopeless or doomed to be a screwup for life. “You acted like a jackass,” I told him. “But even hurting me and hurting my feelings like this doesn’t mean you’re never going to be capable of doing or being anything good. Just remember that, okay?”

He nodded and we hugged for a long while, both of us holding back tears. “I’ll call you,” he said. “I promise, I’ll call you.”

I just got in the Jeep and didn’t say anything at all.