I just started a new job.  A job, which was so fantastic, I had to push back a planned move to Europe.  And although I was the one moving, uprooting, leaving a country, a culture, a language, a family, a network, and doing this all to my 2 1/2 year old daughter as well, my European boyfriend decided last week that he couldn’t “wait”.

I’ve only been “waiting” for him to get “divorced” since the day we met, but hey, sit back in your own house, in your own country, and don’t wait for the financially solvent woman with ambition.

We broke up, and I was fantastic.  I was pleased with the points I had zeroed in on, such as ”Obviously, you’re not interested in the real me, you’re just looking for someone to fill the empty ‘wife’ spot in your home.“.  He didn’t know how to end the call, and when I smugly suggested, “How about  ‘Goodbye, and good luck’?”  he reluctantly agreed.  He was just getting out the first “G-” when I quietly hung up the phone.

I was stellar for two whole days.

Two days later, I was pushing around a supermarket shopping cart, passed the brand of coffee that I usually buy when he’s visiting, and was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of remorse and grief.  Steady, girl.  I forced myself to steer past the M&M aisle.  I picked up tampons.

The next day I left on a business trip, and while sitting in an executive lounge in another city, trying intently to have a conversation with a new coworker, the only thing I could focus on was the “light music” playing softly in the background:

You packed in the morning
I stared out the window
And I struggled for something to say
You left in the rain without closing the door
I didn’t stand in your way
Now I miss you more
Than I missed you before
And now where I’ll find comfort, God knows

And it took all of my restraint not to choke out the next line “And yo-o-o-ou left me, just when I needed you most” and throw my head down on the table and begin sobbing uncontrollably.  (WHY do I know the words to this song??)

I sat in my empty hotel room and re-capped the entire relationship in my mind.  I called him three times to share the results of my re-cap with him.  He was nonchalant, as only Northern Europeans can be.  I was enraged and crazy, like a Mexican with PMS.  I googled him.  I searched for him on international match.com and when I saw he had a brand new profile and had used photos that I took on our vacations,  I called him again to tell him what an incredible, soulless, self-centered asshole I thought he was.  When I hung up, I screamed “ASSHOLE!  ASSHOLE!  ASSHOLE!” at my phone and promptly ate all of the M&M’s in my mini-bar.  I desperately tried to ignore the voice in my head that was redialling his number and yelling “And another thing – !!”  I also smoked a cigarette.  I haven’t smoked in years.

So now I’m sitting here with cancer and a fat ass, eating more M&M’s, watching re-runs of Sex and the City, and trying to figure out just why Carrie didn’t love Aidan.  Thank you, PMS.  Not even a tiny bit of dignity and grace could you permit me to retain.  I finally break up with a schmuck for all the right reasons, and you still turn me into a snivelling, insult-hurling, soft-rock-crying-jag, making-snow-angels-on-a-hotel-bed-and-feeling-sorry-for-myself MORON.

I think I need to go call him again and let him know just how much this upsets me.