DarkJoy

It’s been a while.  Where to begin.  Work has been overwhelming.  Satisfying, but just a little too much to handle alone.  My partner returns from a three week paternity absence this Monday, so things will return to normal.  What follows is an entry I started on the 1st, but could not find the time to pen all the words I needed to speak…here goes.

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A year ago this blog was born. My first post was on May 20th, but the events that triggered its creation, the severing of ties between M. and I, happened on May 1st, 2009. After weeks of anguish, I started to look inward, realizing that my failures with respect to dating, and other aspects of life, had as much to do with my own actions as they did with the randomness of life. Thus, I began a journey of self examination and self correction.

I won’t go into too much detail about what the last year has been like. If you’ve been reading this space, you already know. At the heart of my enlightenment is understanding that I’ve had an addiction to love for most of my life. No, I have an addiction to love, period. Admitting this to myself was only the first step. In the last five weeks or so, I think I’ve finally started to get a handle on it. Or I’ve at least learned to acknowledge the times when my thoughts and actions in romance are born out of love addiction, and not necessarily or solely from true feelings.

The way this condition has manifested itself was not through overindulgence, but through over righteousness. Over earnestness. At times excessive neediness. Having no memories of being a family of four, and having witnessed the hurt my mother felt from the actions of my father, I made some rules for myself very early on. Never would I allow myself to be unfaithful. Never would I unecessarily cause a woman pain. I would not talk about how I felt, either early in a relationship or in its twilight, until internally I was already certain of my feelings. There was a time when I felt even having an interest in more than one woman at a time was a violation of this code. My solution to this? Be honest with all of them. It’s not hard to see how things could go wrong for me.

Despite the misguided good intentions, I still managed to stumble into a few healthy and long lasting relationships.  Looking back, I can see where my fear of abandonment consumed me and dictated the responses one can have when we open our hearts and place it at the mercy of someone else.  I was eager to love, and eager to be loved.  Yet I was not fully able to understand and consequently handle the risks involved.  Looking back, I almost feel like a coward.  Or just a love fool.  Likely both.

The year of 2009, and the early part of this year, was filled with ups and downs.  The downs however, were completely avoidable in retrospect.  M. and Jane were trouble almost from the start.  Emotional loose cannons and walking train wrecks, I got on board under the illusions that I could tame the beast, or ride the wave, or whatever fucking metaphor fits.  My superman complex at it’s finest.  After falling victim to their games two times each, I’ve started to really understand the nature of my weakness.  And with this knowledge, I’ve been able to…let go of the rules I once created for myself.  The prison I once trapped myself in has been deconstructed, and the views I have on romance are being rebuilt.  It feels nice to be free, and to feel the freshness of a new perspective.  I’ve taken care not to allow myself to become jaded.  After all, “…it’s not [just] love, but the will to love that counts”.  I still want the things I have always wanted, but I’m now wise enough to know how I should go about getting it.

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I only now realized that I never wrote about the end of my feelings for Jane.  Too much has happened for me in the last month, and I had discussed the events enough times since they occurred that I don’t feel the need to put them to words.  I do think it’s important to put those words to this space, for the sake of completeness.  And to serve as a reminder of the vital lesson learned.

My previous entry talked of Jane’s now famous flakiness.  She seemed genuinely guilty to have let me down the way she did, and seemed eager to make up for it.  She insisted we get together the following Thursday (April 15th).  Because I had the possibility of working late that night, I told her that I’d be able to confirm sometime the day of, which she was okay with.  I finally messaged her early that afternoon to let her know I’d be free for the evening.  Somehow in the 14 hours since our last conversation, around 10pm the previous night, she managed to make other plans, and not tell me about it.  I have trouble believing she would not have done the same thing if our plans had been set in stone.  I shrugged it off, and simply told her we can get together some other time.  In any case, two days later would be her birthday dinner, and I’d see her then.

When Saturday afternoon came around, Jane called me to “make sure you’re still alive”, and to confirm whether or not I’d be attending her birthday dinner.  I could sense she had something else she wanted to tell me, but never pressed her.  Arriving at the restaurant, I took a seat between two of her family friends, and near her mother, who I was meeting for the first time.  The guests arrived in a staggered manner, and eventually she kept three seats open next to her.  Eventually two of her friends, and another guy, DL, showed up and took the remaining seats.  DL took the spot next to her.  When she introduced him to me…I immediately sensed something…unpleasant.  That feeling only grew as other micro events took place over the course of the night.  First he’d place his arm around her chair.  Then he’d take bite of the slice of birthday cake that the resto offered her (this action was poorly covered up by her then passing the plate around to the twenty other guests at the table).  Throughout all of this, her body language was uncomfortable, which only suggested that she felt she had something to conceal.

Later a few of us went to a bar to continue the celebration, DL included.  I spent most of the night talking with the friends she had made during her very brief time in school.  At one point Jane and DL disappeared to the dance floor, but not before casually holding hands, sharing an embrace, and eventually a few kisses.  By the end of the night, they were ferociously making out just a few feet away from me.  I never allowed myself to show a reaction, or to appear as if I had noticed.  I wondered how long this thing had been going on.  Up until two days prior, she was acting as though she wanted to reconnect.  I suspect the last day she broke plans with me was the day they first hooked up.  I only wonder what she had told her friends about it all.  None of them seemed surprised that they were together, yet they were all fully aware of the short history between Jane and I.  My guess is they knew there’d be a potentially awkward situation having me there that night.  It would have been nice to have been warned as well.

I’ve realized that I can’t expect decent behavior from this one, not even in the context of friendship.  I saw her the next day at River’s Edge, and she greeted me as if nothing could possibly have been wrong.  I thought about confronting her maturely, but it then dawned on me that she is so wrapped up in her own perfect storm that she cannot see consequences her actions have on others she claims to be dear to her.  It would not be worth it.  Nor would it be worth it, or healthy for me to continue to trying to carry the friendship.  In that moment, I simply let go.  Whatever was holding me to her all this time finally gave way.  Finally, it was over, with no possibility of returning.

Since then Jane has sent me a few texts, most of which I have ignored.  Some asked if I were avoiding her.  When I did reply, all I would tell her was that I have no reason to avoid her and I’ve been busy.  Her last text asked if I would be available to help her move on July 1st.  The nerve of this girl.  I ignored the first message, and when she followed up to ask if I’d received her previous text, and to ask why I’ve been so busy, I replied:

“I got your text.  I’ve been busy with work because my partner is away for a few weeks, and I’ve been busy socially because I’ve made a few new friends recently.  I’m not sure I’ll be able to help you move, I have a few friends also moving and they’ve all asked for my help”.  All she wrote back was, “Ok”.

Since then it’s been radio silence between us, and I have to admit that I’m happy about that.  Very little good has come from our association, and I no longer want to be dragged into her madness.

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So that, in a very large nutshell, is what the last month has been about.  There is still a very major story to tell, which touches a lot on the first part of this post, but I will save that for a separate entry…which I’ll hopefully write today.

Posted in: Drink Of Anguish, lionheart, resurreccion by PrimeraEspada /