This is going to be one of those cathartic, mostly depressing posts. So, you might want to consider not reading it. I'd almost rather you didn't. Last time I wrote a post like this, L read it and strongly suggested I take it down, on the grounds that I shouldn't allow anyone to see me so emotionally stripped bare.
But the thing is, this blog is something I actually do for myself. I allow it to be publicly readable because my life is just wacky enough just often enough that I think it has the ability to amuse the small group of people who actually read it. And I've never regretted not taking down that previous post, because from time to time I read it to remind myself of what I was feeling then.
So, I'm writing another post like it tonight, to try and get out of myself the feelings that have left me all but paralyzed for the entire weekend. I need to get the feelings out, because I have to get up and function like a normal person tomorrow, but I want to remember through the years what I went through during this time.
And so this is it: your last chance, dear readers, to bail out before we do a deep dive into what LAJ once called "all my complicated glory". You've been warned.
Although Keiko and I broke up over 3 months ago, we have tried hard to be friends, and continued to gchat a little pretty much every day, and talk on the phone maybe once a week. That was a lot less communication than we used to have when we were dating, but both of us hate being single and I think were relying on each other to be a steady presence even as we confronted an uncertain future, and the need to start getting back out there and dating other people.
Recently, as Keiko started to get out there and start meeting people, (something markedly easier to do when you're 27, stunningly gorgeous, and in a town full of single twenty-somethings, than it is to do when you're 37, balding, and in a town full of software engineers), it had gotten harder for us. For me, it was hard to see her moving on, even though I knew it was the right thing for her. For her, I had only in the last month really done enough processing of our relationship to do the relationship post-mortem from my perspective, and that stuff was hard for her to hear. All of her relationship post-mortem stuff had come in the first month post-breakup, and although that stuff hadn't been easy for me to hear either, I'd listened to all of it and tried wherever I could to validate whatever she was feeling. I know the job I did was imperfect, but I think I did a reasonable job of that.
But the end result was that this last week we had a series of very hard conversations followed by a series of very painful emails. I was reminded anew of some important rules about email:
1) NEVER put in an email something that requires the reader to correctly supply complicated nuances of tone. What will happen, invariably, like a law of nature itself, is that the reader will hear in their mind that sequence of tones which is most directly *opposite* the ones you wanted them to hear.
2) When someone writes an email like that to YOU, remember that (1) as noted above, you are almost certainly getting the tones all wrong, and (2) whether you've got the tones right or wrong, NEVER respond to the email while you're still gripped by whatever emotions you're feeling. Slow it down. The emotional release you'll get from the quick response will last for the briefest of moments. The regret you'll feel about what you said, that you'll carry for the rest of your life.
In our last series of emails, both Keiko and I violated those rules repeatedly. As it all spiraled out of control, the last email she sent, late late Friday night, ended with "I think it'll be better for us if we were just exs who tried once and realized we didn't work as friends. I loved you passionately and I learned and grew so much from this relationship. Thank you."
I don't know if I've ever been so hurt by a couple brief sentences.
So, in clear violation of Rule 2, I wrote back that I was sad that she didn't want to be friends, but that I would leave her her space and wait 6 months before trying to give her a call to see how she's doing. Looking back, I wish I'd slowed it down more along the way. Who knows, we may well have come to this point anyway, but maybe not. We'll never know.
Now I confront the loss of Keiko a 2nd time. Losing her as a girlfriend hurt a lot, but losing her as a friend, confronting the possibility that we may never again share laughter or really know what's going on in each others' lives, I feel that loss a thousand times more strongly. In the end, we did not actually make great life partners for each other, for a number of different reasons, but we *did* actually make great companions for each other, and the loss of that companionship has left me, for the first time in my life, feeling deeply, deeply lonely.
I doubt that Keiko will ever read this post; I remember her saying a couple weeks ago that she couldn't read my blog anymore because it was just too painful for her. But Keiko, if you do end up reading this, this is what I would say to you now: I didn't do as good a job as I should have in the time I had you of loving and cherishing you as you do indeed deserve to be loved and cherished; I didn't communicate with you nearly as much as I should have, nor did I do enough work to understand your communication style; I think you looked to me for leadership in this relationship, and I totally abdicated that responsibility. That's a lot of different ways to have let you down, and I'm truly sorry for that. But I did grow to love you more deeply than I have ever loved another woman, and the 2 years we spent together are an important part of who I am, which means *you're* an important part of who I am. I will love and treasure that part to all the end of my days, and I hope that you will find it in your heart to do the same. And maybe, just maybe, one happy day 6 months or 6 years from now we will reconnect as friends, and once again find ourselves eager to share with each other what's going on in our lives. I know I will always be hoping for that.
Goodbye, my baby. May you one day very soon find the man who will love and cherish you as you deserve, and who will give you the simple, quiet family life that I know in your heart you desire. And through the years, if you should chance to think upon me, know that wherever I am, I am wishing you peace, love, and happiness...
Always.
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