My friend, Leeann, and Butch, her boyfriend of a couple of months, who just moved in together, were away for a week in Alabama, attending his daughter’s graduation from high school. She dropped by before they left and we chatted a while and she said he was driving her nuts because he wasn’t letting her have any alone time, not even to go to the store or visit a friend, and she had swindled the time somehow to come and see me. Well, that didn’t sound good.

Leeann had hoped that after they were living together, he would feel more secure and calm down and, maybe, even, go back to work, because he hadn’t been to the marina he manages the whole time they have been together.

So the week went by and when I biked past their little house, I’d check the cars, and, no, the sedan they had left in wasn’t there and yesterday it was, but her pick-up was gone. Well, I didn’t stop, because I wasn’t interested in talking to him – it was her I wanted to see. And her pick-up wasn’t there today either. So I called her cell phone and she called back. “I’ve left him,” she said. The Alabama trip had been just okay, but after getting back, a girlfriend of hers had come over, and he got very sullen about that, so she said, “That’s it, I’m outta here.”

She has gone to her sister's, nearby, not on the island, though, who has a spare room and will rent that for a while and for the time being has decided not to start seeing anyone which I think is a good idea. She is negotiating to get some of her clothes and the dog food. She has a pitbull named Mallory, who is a really sweet dog. I am so glad I didn’t stop to talk with him. He might have snapped my head off. When you are miserable, which Leeann, says he is, you aren’t too nice, usually. She said he told her she was tearing his heart out. Well, geez, if you really love someone, instead of just using them as your self-esteem fix, you let them have the space they need to breathe. So I don’t think what he feels for her is all that noble.
We’ll get together next week, she and I.

Xx, Teal

P.S. Whenever I think of Alabama, I am reminded of the joke Brett Butler told in her stand-up comedy routine. She said she had been born in Alabama, and when she realized it, had managed to get out of the house and crawl across the state line.