Loving Enough To Let Go

Go away
Give me a chance to miss you
Say goodbye
It'll make me want to kiss you

I love you so
Much more when you're not here
Watchin' all the bad shows
Drinking all of my beer

I don't believe Adam and Eve
Spent every goddamn day together
If you give me some room, there will be room enough for two (two)

-Leave Me Alone (I’m Lonely), P!nk

 

We actually met in the Wal-Mart parking lot.  What is this, a trailer trash nightmare?  I was a freshman in college.  I was huddled up in my dormitory and we found eachother… online.  The last relationship ripped me to shreds.  I guess dating an ex-Mormon with horrible self image problems that he would constantly project on me wasn’t ideal.  Then again, how was I to know?  My experience was so limited at the time.  My few exposures to the dating world were not exactly positive.

So as we walked through the Wal-Mart and picked out our steak and potatoes to cook in my kitchenette (how romantic), I thought maybe I was feeling butterflies.  The next few months, I couldn’t tell if I was being courted or suffocated.  In retrospect, I should have known by the "stage five clinger" text my friend at the time had texted me.  Many nights were spent staring at the popcorn ceiling, wondering if I should give it another try.  Things were comfortable.  Things were nice.  Could this continue?

We spent a few summers together.  My roommates approved.  I think I had enough teddy bears, chocolates, and other kind of cheesy gifts to stock the Salvation Army for a year.  Still, I was tormented.   I wasn’t okay with being safe.  The last time was the worst time.  I was not used to love being comfortable.

When I finished college, I moved home to start my first big boy job, and you came too.  Under a guise of a new program in school, you held tightly.  However, when things did not proceed between us, all of your ambitions of school deteriorated.  I still remember a night of endless crying in the guest bedroom.  The pain in the realization that I couldn’t commit and I had to let go.  I had no defense.  I could not pretend a love into existence.

I was supposed to be the “saved” person in distress.  It made you feel good to take care of me, at the expense of your self.  Your sense of self and your sense of masculinity was tied up in being my savior.  Your emptiness was filled up through material gestures and dominating my schedule.  You expected the same in return.  When I didn't deliver, I was wrong.  I was the bad guy.  

I tried to keep things friendly.  I wanted to maintain a friendship I considered valuable.  I had to clear the blurred boundaries I'd become accustomed.  Always trying to assert my position in our dynamic and failing.  I receiving large boxes of gifts, unwanted or desired.  I had to explain each time to my friends.  The boxes were guilt that tormented me deeply.  I thought to myself, “what I have I done?”.  I have made it so that he could not move on and he was deteriorating from me dragging this out.  That thought was incompatible with my sense of self.  I never thought that someone could feel that strongly about me.

Like the nights when I received texts begging me to respond or show some level of comfort and support for someone who clearly needed my emotional support.  At the same time, me caving in was perpetuating a co-dependent, toxic dynamic. Or the time when he showed up at my apartment after I insisted he did not come, and he refused to leave.  I could have called the cops.  I didn't.  I couldn't.

Life is full of decisions.  Sometimes we learn that we shouldn’t/can’t/won’t make good ones ourselves, so we push down our intuitions.  We don’t feel ourselves.  We end up emotionally confused.  We end up addicted.  We end up hurting people in the process.  Sometimes, doing the right thing is hard and it doesn’t feel good at all.  In fact, it's a concoction of guilt and torture.  Unlearning our toxic methods for handling our emotions is a key part of growing up.

If you are out there... yes, I still think about you.  Yes, sometimes I still cry when I do.  I still have some of your things in my closet.  When I look at them, I see two strangers, who found comfort in each other for a while.  Two strangers, who found a reason to keep moving forward despite all of the uncertainty that life carries. Two strangers, who are forever changed.

I don’t know if, like you hope and wish, I will one day change my mind and be “ready”.  I wish I could tell you that I will be your friend, and my platonic love will never expire.  That is the truth.  I will be there for you like you were for me all of those years when I had nobody else (particularly myself).  Each time I think of you, I pick up my phone to send a text.  Then, I remember that I must let you let me go.