I read somewhere that if you take a piece of paper and crumble it up, you can never perfectly flatten it back out again. This was used as a metaphor for love or trust or some such debilitating affliction we all suffer from eventually. I think it's true for both. If you give someone love and they reject it or worse, pretend to accept it but then stomp all over it, even if you make up, are you right back to the initial level of love? Or a lesser, slightly rumpled garage-sale-quality level love? And is it still good enough? I've found some pretty good things at garage sales. Well, estate sales, anyway.
I'm learning that you really have to be careful of what you ask the universe for, because sometimes you get it. I asked for closure over my latest (non)relationship, which was more or less a top-secret kind of gig that, to say the least, took me by surprise and swept me off my feet. Neither one of us were really looking for anything of that depth or intensity, and I am sure I felt more of it than he did, since I always seem to feel things more intensely than others, and certainly more than men do. It makes me vulnerable to a lot of pain, but I kind of don't have a choice but to experience life in the only way I know how, by being authentically me, even if it's not something everybody around me is prepared to deal with. It's part of the package. I fall harder, love deeper, suffer longer...and yeah, maybe the highs balance out the lows. Hard to remember that when you're at the bottom of one of those lows though.
I asked the universe to help me get closure. And I got it. He was man enough to come see me face to face after a week of complete silence, even though he knew I'd be looking for answers, and he knew that his ultimate response would be disappointing and hurtful to me. Of course, what I secretly was hoping for was that through our discussion, my calm logic would help him see that I admit my faults and my mistakes, and I'm sorry for them, but that I am worth taking a chance on. He didn't agree. Everything boiled down to his final words to me, after I finally cornered him on why we couldn't just give this 'thing' a chance: "I guess I just don't want any commitments". Well, there you have it folks. I walked away (in tears) and told him to see himself out. It was very, very sad for me.
I can (and of course do) translate his words to, "You, JC, are not compelling enough for me to overcome my fears [because I believe that's really what this is about] of opening up to another potentially disastrous relationship where I put up with a bunch of bullshit and in the end only end up getting hurt." Not enough. And yeah, I hear you, my cheerleaders, saying, "but JC, you're terrific! You ARE enough! He's just a commitmentphobic douchebag!" Thank you for the ego boost, I do appreciate you trying to make me feel better about how things ended up. While I'd like that all to be true, in this case, it isn't. For this particular person, who I just really seem to click with on almost all levels, I'm clearly NOT compelling enough. Not worth it. My good doesn't outweigh the potential bad. I am on the losing end of the equation. To him, freedom from a commitment (even with a pretty amazeballs chick who would have done almost anything -except compromise exclusivity- to make a relationship with him work), and the potential (or reality) of other, better partners outweighed anything I could potentially have to offer. And even if there aren't other partners I'm losing the battle against right now, that means essentially, I lost to NOTHING. In the heavyweight title bout of ME vs. NOTHING, NOTHING won. He chose NOTHING over taking a chance on ME.
Ouch.
That smarts.
Actually, it doesn't just smart. It really, really fucking hurts. It rends the sides of my optimistic (and clearly myopic) little Disneyfied heart into stabby-looking shreds that don't want to come back together in the same order to form the same shaped heart it used to be. Maybe that's a good thing, because clearly the last configuration it assumed didn't work so well for me. I picture it coming back together like the graphic here, haphazardly stitched up and patched, with some ragged edges and gaps where more heart pieces used to be. Those pieces are lost now, been all used up.
So like the paper, once it's crumbled, it won't be the same paper ever again. Optimists would look at it this way: now that paper is far better for something exciting and different, like papier mache. Or starting a fire. It has texture and interest now, a more intricate landscape that has more traction than just an ordinary flat, smooth, dime-a-dozen piece of paper. Now, that paper can aspire to different, better opportunities than merely being written or colored upon. Now it can be a part of something. Realistically, we have to acknowledge that this "something" could just be a big old Dumpster it's about to get thrown into. But even though it's physical mass didn't change, the order and shape of it has, and it won't just slide nicely into the side of the trash bag and leave room for others. It's going to take up space and insist on being noticed because of what it's been through. Other garbage will have to move over to make room for it.
Does this rejection make me hate him? I wish it did. It is so much easier to go from love to hate, but they are really just the same thing - passion. I have to walk away, let it go. I'm not going to chase it, I've already humbled myself enough by putting it all out there and being rejected. I won't further humiliate myself by begging for something that's not going to happen. If he isn't moved enough just by who I am and what he's already experienced with me, and isn't willing to go out onto that ledge and risk it all for me...fuck 'em. I don't want him, and he doesn't deserve me.
Sorry, that was my logical brain that took over those last few sentences. My heart is horrified that I could even say something like that, when clearly, I DO want him. My brain and heart are going to have to learn how to agree to disagree until the heart realizes that there's really no use in feeling warm and fuzzy towards someone who can't or won't return it. It will lose interest eventually, and that's when I'll start feeling better and believing the things my brain tells me. Until then, I shall suffer.
And he's not a douchebag. He's a really, really nice guy, or else I wouldn't have fallen for him in the first place. Should he have warned me ahead of time? We weren't entering into a big 'thing' as far as we knew, and neither of us expected feelings to develop, so why would he think to warn me? He doesn't have a crystal ball. Should I have warned him, "hey, I'm gonna want a commitment eventually..."? No. I didn't think I was going to. We were just dating, for shits and giggles. Nothing serious. It's all fun and games 'til somebody loses an eye...or a heart.
So now, that space he was starting to take up in my life, the person who greeted me every morning and evening, checked in on me, discussed work and friends with me, got drunk and laughed with me, even stroked my hair like a small child's once...now that space is empty. And it's BIG. It's a big, cavernous, echo-filled absence. And since I never had anyone like him before, I now feel like I'll never find anybody to fill it ever again. And I won't. It's HIS gap. Shaped exactly like him. The next person will have to make their own space, they won't be able to fill his, and it wouldn't be fair of me to expect them to.
But for now, all I can hear are his echoes and all I can see are his shadows. And I want them to go away and leave me and my tattered heart alone, so I don't have to continually picture him at home, going to bed alone (or not), thinking, "yeah, this is MUCH better than having JC here with me. I'd rather be alone because I'm used to it and it's comfortable. I made the right decision by passing on that one. She was too intense for me anyway, and already showed me that she's kinda crazy by losing her shit once and jumping to conclusions. Yeah, I'm better off." That's the monologue I imagine he'll be having with himself tonight. Then he'll drift off to sleep easily and immediately, as he does, and wake up in the morning feeling refreshed, and the first thought that jumps into his mind won't be about me. He won't wonder how I feel, what I'm doing, won't reflexively grab his phone to see if I've texted or to send me that "good morning" I had gotten so used to. He won't look in the mirror and see puffy eyes from crying too much and straggly hair from the salty tears that soaked it all night.
But by making his choice, he also won't wake to me rubbing that nagging pain out of his back the way only I know how, since I have the same one on the opposite site. He won't wake to me making him coffee just the way he likes it and bringing it to him while he's still in bed. He won't wake to me returning his soft brown gaze with my intense blue one in the bright light of morning, even though I hate being seen without makeup on I know he prefers me that way so I'd let him stare. He won't wake to me scratching his hair and his face and lovingly touching all of his scars and tattoos, wondering what made them and why they look so perfect on him. He won't wake up knowing that no matter where he went or what he did that day, a good woman was off doing her own thing but always thinking about him, sending him positivity and good thoughts, and looking forward to seeing him the next time they could both arrange their busy schedules.
He won't get any of that, because he chose NOTHING.
I hope they're very happy together.
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