Monday, July 14, 2008
I tried to quit smoking, and that was my first mistake. Two days later my relationship was on the rocks. Five days after that it was over. I feel dead. After three years, I don’t think my nervous system knows how to handle the loss. If I work, I’m distracted and I get by just fine. It’s an illusion, of course. The bottom drops out without warning and I plummet towards despair.
She told me she didn’t want to hurt me, then shredded my soul. In her defense, she had reasons. She believes I don’t value or respect her opinion. She believes I want her to change fundamentally to fit my personality. She believes we have difference that can’t be worked through.
If I thought any of that was true, I wouldn’t be the wreck I am now. I mean, I’d be devastated, but I’d have the solace of knowing it was only what was best for us. I don’t believe that, so instead I’m angry, I feel betrayed, abandoned…destroyed.
I’ve lost the only good thing life ever offered me. At least the only one I recognized. And that’s part of the rub. I know that, taken literally, that isn’t true. Life’s given me opportunities and good friends, but more than that, taken as I really mean it, life has probably offered me thing and I just didn’t notice.
I think I could be okay if I could hate her for what she did, but I can’t. I know, on a primal level--striped of hubris, anger and self deception—that I do value her opinion, don’t want her change… I just failed to let her know.
The easy way would be to say, I don’t know what I could have done differently to let her know. It isn’t as if I didn’t tell her these things. I did, over and over. It isn’t as if I didn’t ask her opinion, solicit her advice. It was often like pulling teeth, and the results were often disappointing. The fact, however, is that--even though I did those things, and changed the way I did those things--I never changed my basic approach. Same old shit, different day.
If you want to improve something, you need to do a reality check. You need to ask; Is this working? I didn’t, and it wasn’t. Thus, the part of the rub I mentioned before. As much as she did this, so did I. Most of my efforts were intended to prevent it, but the road to hell is paved with such and that cliché has a real meaning. Intent is never enough. You must be aware and act responsibly and above all, make sure you are going where you were aiming.
Kevin thinks that there is nothing between us that warrants a break up. Beyond the anger and sense of betrayal, I agree, but what can I DO about it?
She doesn’t want to talk to me. Even if she did, I’d have to convince her that she was wrong, which would be neither valuing nor respecting her opinion, which I do. And that was my second mistake.
I valued her opinion and her right to choose her path so much that when her opinion turned against us, I was paralyzed. Perhaps I should have raged against it all. Let the emotions run free, poured out my heart. That wouldn’t have been fair. At the time, being fair seemed the right thing to do. At the time I felt like the emotions would only make it worse. I guess I just couldn’t believe we’d really end up here. I couldn’t believe that being together was such a bad thing.
I don’t know that letting the emotions free would have been a good thing. I don’t trust my emotions, because they aren’t trust worthy. They lead to more bad choices than good. They are self-interested and often petty. I don’t think this makes them bad, and hope it doesn’t make me a bad person. I just think of them as advice that must be taken with a heavy amount of salt. What would I have said, driven by the raw fear and heartache? Would I have been insulting? Destructive?
I don’t know. I didn’t know then, and I don’t now. Now, as then, I’m stuck. Stuck between release and despair, between heartache and anger, between desperation and panic. I feel like destroying something, but I’ve never been one to take things out on stuff, so I’m left with destroying myself. That’s just stupid, but the emotional mind is trying to come up with anything it can to make this right. Which goes back to why I don’t trust it.
I want her back. I need her back. Sometimes that’s all I can think about, but in the darkest moments I find myself asking, “what if she is right? What if we are better off apart? What if you need her because you’ve never made yourself whole?”
She told me she didn’t want to hurt me, then shredded my soul. In her defense, she had reasons. She believes I don’t value or respect her opinion. She believes I want her to change fundamentally to fit my personality. She believes we have difference that can’t be worked through.
If I thought any of that was true, I wouldn’t be the wreck I am now. I mean, I’d be devastated, but I’d have the solace of knowing it was only what was best for us. I don’t believe that, so instead I’m angry, I feel betrayed, abandoned…destroyed.
I’ve lost the only good thing life ever offered me. At least the only one I recognized. And that’s part of the rub. I know that, taken literally, that isn’t true. Life’s given me opportunities and good friends, but more than that, taken as I really mean it, life has probably offered me thing and I just didn’t notice.
I think I could be okay if I could hate her for what she did, but I can’t. I know, on a primal level--striped of hubris, anger and self deception—that I do value her opinion, don’t want her change… I just failed to let her know.
The easy way would be to say, I don’t know what I could have done differently to let her know. It isn’t as if I didn’t tell her these things. I did, over and over. It isn’t as if I didn’t ask her opinion, solicit her advice. It was often like pulling teeth, and the results were often disappointing. The fact, however, is that--even though I did those things, and changed the way I did those things--I never changed my basic approach. Same old shit, different day.
If you want to improve something, you need to do a reality check. You need to ask; Is this working? I didn’t, and it wasn’t. Thus, the part of the rub I mentioned before. As much as she did this, so did I. Most of my efforts were intended to prevent it, but the road to hell is paved with such and that cliché has a real meaning. Intent is never enough. You must be aware and act responsibly and above all, make sure you are going where you were aiming.
Kevin thinks that there is nothing between us that warrants a break up. Beyond the anger and sense of betrayal, I agree, but what can I DO about it?
She doesn’t want to talk to me. Even if she did, I’d have to convince her that she was wrong, which would be neither valuing nor respecting her opinion, which I do. And that was my second mistake.
I valued her opinion and her right to choose her path so much that when her opinion turned against us, I was paralyzed. Perhaps I should have raged against it all. Let the emotions run free, poured out my heart. That wouldn’t have been fair. At the time, being fair seemed the right thing to do. At the time I felt like the emotions would only make it worse. I guess I just couldn’t believe we’d really end up here. I couldn’t believe that being together was such a bad thing.
I don’t know that letting the emotions free would have been a good thing. I don’t trust my emotions, because they aren’t trust worthy. They lead to more bad choices than good. They are self-interested and often petty. I don’t think this makes them bad, and hope it doesn’t make me a bad person. I just think of them as advice that must be taken with a heavy amount of salt. What would I have said, driven by the raw fear and heartache? Would I have been insulting? Destructive?
I don’t know. I didn’t know then, and I don’t now. Now, as then, I’m stuck. Stuck between release and despair, between heartache and anger, between desperation and panic. I feel like destroying something, but I’ve never been one to take things out on stuff, so I’m left with destroying myself. That’s just stupid, but the emotional mind is trying to come up with anything it can to make this right. Which goes back to why I don’t trust it.
I want her back. I need her back. Sometimes that’s all I can think about, but in the darkest moments I find myself asking, “what if she is right? What if we are better off apart? What if you need her because you’ve never made yourself whole?”
