Scales had to cancel on Thursday, so we ended up meeting for lunch after I got out of church yesterday. A lot of talking and listening was done. I’m a little farther on my journey than she is on hers, so I felt like I was able to give advice… but not until I said, “do you want my advice, or do you just want me to listen?” I have learned to ask that question many times over, because sometimes all people want is a place to be heard. Everything I said was hard, hard won, and it made me recede into the depths of myself. I came home emotionally drained, not from listening to her, but from going deep inside myself to tell her about the conclusions I’ve made in my recent past…. my flawed, fucked up past that is basically a manual on “What Not to Do.” The mask came down, and I spoke honestly… which I’m not used to doing after meeting someone exactly once before… and at the same time, she made me feel comfortable enough that I could, because she wasn’t Scales,™ either. We each just needed time to decompress, and it was much needed on both ends.
I have been and continue to be a mess on the inside, just a jumble of emotion that won’t go away until I unpack it all. It’s been five days since Argo and I have had any contact with each other, and another five days before that. I can’t remember the last time I went five days without e-mailing her a go get ’em, tiger e-mail… and it hurts, deeply, but I know I’m doing the right thing. It is as if the flood is passing and the rainbow has started to come out. Light in my eyes is returning, when I have been days without it. There have been times where I’ve felt my heart was literally walking outside my body where she was concerned, and now, not so much. I finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired… not physically, just emotionally. Heartsick to an enormous degree and trying to sleep it off… because that’s what I do when my body is trying to release a storm. I’ve been taking my sleeping medication very early, so that I am dead to the world before 9:00, and getting up at 6:00 so I have time to move about my day slowly before I have to be at the office. It’s helping me not to forget things because I have enough to make tea, eat breakfast, pack, take meds, etc. And actually, this morning I woke up at 5:15 and just read until my alarm went off.
Depression hurts. It just does. Not the bipolar kind, but the type you feel situationally when you’re just moving in the world sad. I didn’t realize how much the weight of Argo’s go-to emotion regarding me would always be dark and twisty affected me until I didn’t have to think about it all the time… because her assumptions are not my story, and they never will be.
As I have said before, I couldn’t apologize enough, forgive enough, or love enough to ease her pain, and now I see it. There is no compromise on anything, and now that the give and take has ended, so does the relationship. I received plenty of recognition for the things I did wrong, and very little over the things I did right. There were genuine moments, clearly, but the bottom line is that I can’t make things right, and it’s killing me to try when it’s never going to happen.
It’s just sad that it took a wrecking ball for me to recognize that fact, when there were subtle signs all along that I missed entirely because I either couldn’t or wouldn’t pay attention to them. I’m not sure which, because I don’t think I consciously ignored anything. I think I just didn’t realize that there was nothing I could do, because shoots of green seemed to take shape and I believe I took too much stock in them.
I didn’t think anything would go back to the way it was; neither one of us were prepared for that. But I did think that there was a possibility, a hope, that peace would win out and over time, the rift would be healed to the point that we could spend time laughing again.
I was wrong.
In the meantime, I just feel sick to my stomach and ready to cry at the drop of a hat, because where there was once great love and affection, there is now a black hole. I’m not angry, I’m not bitter, I’m not happy she’s gone, there’s just nothing. A great big emptiness that in the moment, nothing fills… or at least, that’s how I feel when I’m alone. Lunch with Scales is really the first time I’ve allowed myself to let go, to laugh at myself, because I know me. We’ve met.
It felt good to laugh. It felt good to have someone value my opinion. It felt great to hug her goodbye, because I can’t remember the last time I hugged someone. For the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to feel content…. maybe not over the top happy, but enough to let my soul relax and just be the me that I know I am, rather than the me that was pushed upon me, instead.
We’re getting together again on Thursday, and it’s nice to have something to look forward to.
I also bought tickets to DC United v. New England Revolution, because even though Raul Diaz Arce and Alexi Lalas aren’t playing, they’re the two teams I loved the most when I was in high school. I don’t know who I’m taking, but even if I don’t take anyone, I know I’m going to have a good time. I felt like I needed to get out more, and the tickets were cheap. I’ve been living like a hermit since I got here, and am only now beginning to branch out.
Shoots of green are beginning to take shape, even if they’re growing in a different direction.
Amen.
Stories That Are All True 