The mental debacle I find myself submerged in today was spawned by a phone call a few days back. A phone call from the dreaded "ex." The phone call, itself, wasn't so much the dreaded part. Not even the content of the conversation either. It was this weird, looming feeling of loneliness that gradually picked up strength in the days that followed. Until, finally, today I felt like I was being laughed at via some "Truman Show-esque" camera I couldn't see. Let me explain...
This "ex" in question is THE EX. He is the "love of my life," "shit, how will I ever get over you" guy that existed high-school through college & during the trials & tribulations that follow suit. I love him. He loves me. These two facts remain & always will. But that's precisely why we can't seem to figure out anything else. Despite dating other people, forcing each other through hell & back, neither he nor I can get this right. NOT talking to each other feels painfully unnatural. However, talking to each other leads to confusion, heart ache & the occasional angry outburst. This is not to say it's always bad. In fact, its quite the opposite which is why it is so irrefutably ridiculous that he & I never get our shit straight. We spend a few days conversing, emailing, texting, talking. It ranges from pleasant to wonderful. We laugh, we miss each other & then eventually make the comments that will lead to our downfall in the ensuing days. "I still love you," "we are just like a storybook," or "we can figure this out." Kiss of death.
A keepsake box I have under my bed combined with a folder, discreetly positioned on my hard-drive contain letters upon letters of thoughts - good & bad - to him, from him, about him. Ones he has seen & ones he never will. I've gone over our relationship a million times in my head trying to figure out when we really messed up. When we lost everything for good. Really, there is no exact moment. There was just a lack of effort on one of our parts at different times that meant the other person was pulling all the weight. Anyone who has been in a real relationship knows you can't fight for it on your own. It use to be that I would always bring it back to the fact that we loved each other & that should be enough, despite it being our biggest problem. We loved each other too much it seemed.
Then it dawned on me that while loving someone is a monumental feat, it doesn't exclude the fact that you will likely love something else more. Like yourself. Or your independence. For me, its myself. For him, its his freedom. I don't mean that I care about myself more than him because I don't. That's selfish. I would & have sacrificed all of me for him & for our relationship. I just mean that I love my sanity, my hopes & dreams for a relationship more than I love the dream of making things work with him. For him, he cherishes his freedom. The ability to do what he wants or deal with things in his own time. It's nearly impossible for him to see that when you are in a relationship, you're no longer on your time schedule. You have someone else counting on you, waiting on you, rooting for you.... your decisions affect them just as much as they affect you. He never really grasped this.
Now, a few days have passed & I'm once again left with this all too familiar feeling of defeat. Except I'm 900 miles away from where I usually am which is both a curse & a blessing. I can't see him. I won't see him. But I'm also terribly alone - more so now because I realize I have left him behind in a way I never thought possible. He will always be a part of me. But he isn't the active part of me. He's my past. He's who I was, not who I am. I'm growing up. Maybe.....
MK
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