March 27, 2011

"And So it Goes"

Yesterday was the official end of the ‘us’ that never was. Talking with my cousin on Skype today, she assured me that he was an ill-equip loser, that he should be falling over himself to be with me, that I don’t want all his issues coming to live with me. She said that he can’t handle a strong, independent, beautiful woman who is smart and compassionate—that I’m better off without him. And though it made me feel better for a millisecond, I remembered, She’s my cousin. That’s her job.

He said it had nothing to do with me—that it was him, but I call bullshit. I want to know why he doesn’t see us moving past this point—what it is about me that he can’t come to love. But maybe I don’t. I want him to tell me the truth if he’s seeing someone else, or has plans to see someone else—what it is about that ‘her’ that makes him not want me. Or maybe not. I want him to own his feelings—to admit he’s afraid that I might get accepted into an out-of-state Ph.D. program, that he doesn’t want to lose me, that he doesn’t want to feel something for me he can’t control. But maybe I don’t want to know that, either. If I move, it'll be harder than it already is.

What I really want is to stop playing this narrative in my head—this fear of ending up alone, of never finding a partner, of living my life without experiencing motherhood. I want the loop that keeps repeating ‘you’re not good enough’ and ‘you don’t deserve any of that’ to erase from my brain. And I want to stop thinking I know something about us being together that I obviously don’t.

Because we were on our way to something, or at least that’s how it felt. He told me things he hadn’t told anyone else; he made me feel like I was special, important—that he could potentially love me. So when I couldn’t catch my breath for crying on the phone, the tears slicking a trail down my chest, I didn’t understand how he could be so stunned at my reaction.

“I thought we could just go back to being friends,” before he attributed my violent sadness to the fact that I had just figured out I was done with my best friend for the past seventeen years. And it made me feel about a quarter inch tall—like he was the Jolly Green Giant scoffing at me for imagining I could ever be green. Or big.

It occurs to me that this is all karmic—that after sending my best friend away and feeling relieved to have resolved that I no longer required the damaging critiques and snide back-handed manipulations; after dissolving my co-dependant marriage and finally freeing myself to find a partner—I am now on the receiving end of someone who does not want me.

And it sucks. Because it doesn’t just hurt my ego, though that’s definitely bone bruised. It hurts because I thought there was a possibility of the ‘something more’ we’d talked about from the beginning—that thing he assured me no longer exists; that has not existed for weeks now. So aside from feeling like a completely clueless ass, I want to know why. Or do I?

Thinking about becoming numb puts me off. I’d rather feel and release, finding that when I don’t confront my feelings they end up squirting out the side like an over-ketchup-ed burger. Besides, it would be completely irresponsible to jump back into dating until I know where I’m going in the next six months. Cerebrally I know the best thing for me right now is to work hard toward my other goals and be comfortable being alone without the training wheels.

I wonder about this fear, though—of really liking singleness, of discovering that I don’t want to be with anyone, coupled with the trend I’ve noticed in myself lately—this impatience with other people, this desire to not have to deal with their neurosis, to get as far away from their collapse zones as possible.

Why then did I want to be there for him? Did I? Or did I just want to not feel so alone? Is that why I endured the abuse from my best friend for so long? Why I stayed married long past the time I wanted to leave?

And what is aloneness in the grand scheme of things? Maybe it’s just a break from people, maybe it’s something I need on the road to something else, maybe after a lifetime filled with others, I need to face myself. And whether that’s for a few weeks or five months—whether it’s for two years or forever, I have to swallow that fear remembering that fear is a horrible reason to do or not do anything.

So the Spring Cleaning Fairy has come through my life, swept out two of my most intimate relationships, and tossed them into the trash. It feels . . . weird, even though I think I was mostly alone anyway in both cases—trying to be the best I could without getting much back, each person a weight in his own way, and me perhaps not entirely being myself, either. But for once, I don’t have to deal with the other part of the figuring out what to do. I only have myself to live with, after all.