I think about her all of the time. All of the time. I am dealing, though, and that will not be a constant drum beaten here on this blog. Not directly, but the subtext of her will definitely always be present. The whiff that forever lingers in the air that captures your attention with a snap to your core memories of a moment, of a feeling, or if you are lucky enough of the person. She and the cliff notes that I am about to go through are one of the reasons if not the main reason to how I have decided to approach this next year of growing myself as a person and as a man. Face and maybe melodramatically stated, combat all that is holding me captive in life. There will be no elegance in this writing. Only a matter-of-factness of my feelings, thoughts, and actions from beginning to the end of the brief affair.
Hindsight is 20/20 as the saying goes. It is a concept that most everyone has had experience with at some time in their life. The frustrating and maybe devastating fact is that, by definition, it comes too late and that the regret gathered from its revelation most often grossly outweighs the clarity also achieved. My recent experience with this beast known as hindsight perfectly outlines this.
I will not bore you with a beginning blow by blow of the first meeting and first nights spent together. Only that it started quickly and intensely with “I love you” exchanged nearly right away. First by me then by her during our first extended goodbye. There was a sizeable age difference and going to be huge distance issues. With all of this she insisted and we agreed upon a way to move forward that was going to be good for mostly her also me even if I did not realize it, but I did not understand at the time how grossly I was misunderstanding the full scope of the agreement. I was still seeing and focusing on the potential of what I was wanting from her and the situation. I was fully convinced in myself that I was living up to my side of the bargain over the next few weeks, but oh how wrong I was in that belief.
(I am going to switch to second and third person for a bit as I proceed to make this seem like a more universal experience that others have found themselves dealing with). She wanted minimal, for lack of a better word, forced communication being casual lovers when paths naturally crossed from your work bringing you together. An amazing weekend was shared together than you left on an emotional high that you could not recall being matched in many years. You continue to be emotionally clingy demanding communications and acknowledgements. She seems okay with this for a while. Even initiates some herself until she seems to be getting frustrated with you, but you cannot understand why. Your insecurities start to transition to anxieties. She is giving you subtle and not subtle hints of what you are doing. You are so desperate to keep that emotional high that you shared together, that she gives you, that regardless of how much she keeps trying to dial you into what she wants, that you agreed upon, that you are not hearing anything that she says. You say that you are hearing her, but you are not. Worse yet you truly think that you are.
Again, why is she noticeably frustrated? Why can you not notice what you are doing? Why can you not just stand back and take notice of yourself? You keep convincing yourself that you are getting it all and that you are getting better with handling the arrangement. She is not communicating like you want though. Why is she taking so long to respond? She told you, though, this is how she wanted to communicate from the near beginning. Why can you not give her the space that she wants? Why can you not do that for her? You just want to hear from her desperately and need the sound of her voice. The anxieties are getting to be so much that you must drink yourself to sleep but jump scare yourself back awake cause what if she texted or tried to call. You are making yourself literally sick. You know that things are not good and that you are strangling her away. Why can you not just stand back and see yourself?
I did not bore you with a blow by blow of the beginning and I will not do that either with the ending, but she finally rightfully so had her fill. I fought back on her, though, and in the fogginess of my drunk I make an utter fool of myself with my actions and by saying things that I did not mean. At least not meaning for them to sound the way that they probably did. She even said earlier in the night’s multiple conversations that we did not need to end all of this, but she was going to hold more firmly to what we first agreed upon. In haze of drink and lack of sleep I just could not understand her as I kept pushing and showing myself more. So then…it was over.
The next morning after needed sleep and complete sobering up started the waterfall of clarity of hindsight. All the things that even during our last, maybe ever, conversation I was so adamant that I knew and understood became painfully clear that I did not. How, though, because she was the one wrong that I did understand. No, she was right. I was so thoroughly convinced that I was doing one thing, but the complete opposite was true. It is so perplexing how our own minds can so dramatically fool ourselves. Then the regrets start to balloon making you feel that you are suffocating. Why could I not have realized all this sooner so that maybe the end would not have been the end by forcing her into the corner that I did?
She assured me multiple times that I did nothing wrong. That she just did not have the ability to be in any sort of a relationship right now and that if she was going to try with anyone that it would be with me, but this writing is not just about her. Not fully. It is more about the hindsight of seeing the person that I was being and becoming. That I did not like that person and need to be better for myself over anything else. I choose to believe her reassurance but also recognize and accept the person that I was being. From the near very beginning she was very clear about what she could offer and what she wanted.
They were other clarities outside of my behaviors that came that involve her more directly. Things that she was saying repeatedly as I kept telling her that she was wrong and other similarly dismissive comments. That we were loving the ideals of each other more than the real us and barely knew each other at the end of the day. Yes, emphatically yes, I have been able to now stand back from it all and see that she was right. That there was a good share of love bombing on my part by going zero to sixty so quickly. That does not change that I had, I still have, feelings for her and deeply hope that someday we can have another chance together to do better by each other. To go about it all as casual lovers like she wanted from the near beginning, and I was the stubborn fool that messed it up by refusing to hear. She is one of the amazing ones and I did not give all of it enough of a chance to be new. To let it have the air of exhilaration by demanding too much too quick. To just allow for it to be its own mutually unique living breathing entity by demanding aspects and qualities that she bluntly said that she would not be able to give me any time soon. If ever at all. I would give anything to truly and fully still get to know that woman. To know every inside out line of that wonderful creation. That may be something that can happen someday. Hindsight, right?
“Enjoy it. Because it’s happening.”
The Perks of Being a Wallflower: Stephen Chbosky
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