Boundaries

I wish that I could have stuck to the boundaries that Aada set for me about not talking to anyone. I really do. It would have made my life a whole lot easier in terms of not upsetting the apple cart. She didn’t recognize that her secrets were big enough to constantly make me sick to my stomach with anxiety… and not because I didn’t tell her. She was too busy to pay attention to all the warning signs that I was going down. I cannot imagine how much a face to face conversation would have helped, but I cannot hope for that anymore. I can only hope that as I move forwards in time, my mind will quiet on its own.

I have been told that my actions were disgusting, that I had a need to prove something by talking about our relationship. I had nothing to prove because all I wanted was relief. I was isolated beyond belief with one friend who wouldn’t really let me have any others, because I couldn’t share what was troubling me to any of them. I chose Michael because I thought… no, I didn’t really think. I was desperate. I couldn’t hold on anymore. He quieted all the anxiety in my mind, but he also caught Aada in a lie. When he did that, one string pulled all the others.

She said I was like a child in a toy store with “you’ll sure as shit get her side, Dagger.” No, that wasn’t delight. That was anger. That was truth pain. That was “if she lies to everyone else, she’ll lie to you, too.” But at least Dagger “isn’t Michelle Obama, for Chrissakes.” My reaction to that line is unprintable, because she knew it would hurt… and it did. That’s because Dagger is precious to me. No one disrespects Dagger in my presence, one so large they identify as the definite article. Michael told me to e-mail them both at the same time, because if they knew each other, it wouldn’t be a big deal. They didn’t, and it was…. especially because the lie snowballed over 12 years to the point that she made me block her on Facebook, ending a relationship I wanted professionally.

I’m just sick over all of it… some days so angry I cannot function that Aada picked up her toys and went home… at others willing to beg and plead like a five year old. I cannot be angry at anyone but me, because apparently if I’d done everything she said the way she said to do it, I’d be sipping coffee on her back porch right now. But is it all really my fault when I told Aada for years that I was anxious and upset? Yes, it really is. The stakes were too high, and I ignored them. I also cannot take anything back.

It is not true that I am the only one at fault for our demise, however. We both did a number on each other when all we really wanted was love… again, not like that. She’s been my muse for 12 years because the only thing more beautiful than her face is her mind… and I met her mind first.

Oh, wait.

That’s not true. The first time I saw her picture I was instantly charmed because she looked like a comic book character. Her hair spoke to me. 😛

I hate small talk, so little jokes became heart to heart conversations in which I disconnected from everyone else just to spend more time with her. And because I couldn’t tell anyone about our conversations, when I was with other people I was there but not present. I retreated into myself so fully that even my family had trouble connecting with me, and that was fine with Aada as well. As long as her secrets were safe, who cared what happened to me?

I waited until I got the all clear from her- that there was nothing I could say that would hurt her- before I started talking about the last few years. Then, a few days ago, she told me that wasn’t true. That people in her professional life had told her they were reading my blog and that was dangerous. So, Aada’s work people, welcome aboard, I guess. I wouldn’t have invited you, but now that you’re here, I suppose you can stay… as if I have any control over who reads me at all, or would even know.

Don’t give her any shit, she’s already been through it having to deal with my sorry ass… though that’s what I hear you’ve already been doing- making sure she’s okay. Keep doing it. If she won’t let me love her, then congratulations. It’s your job now. I’m alternately the easiest and hardest act to follow you’ll find.

That’s because I drive her insane, but I’ve had my moments.

And this is where I start to cry and shake, because those moments are precious to me. I will never love like this again because there will be no circumstances in my life like the ones in which we met. You’ll have to go back and read all 12 years because I’m too tired to talk about them today.

I am not too tired to talk about how my brain chemicals are rearranged with grief, because I deleted everything in my Gmail account both from and to her. That means that our most precious moments from when our relationship began are no more. They at least live in my memory, but I cannot take them out and read them as they happened. In some ways, this is for the best as I tended to reread often and dwell on them, not moving forward in time. I just wasn’t smart enough to see all the consequences involved between what is said and what is meant.

“There’s nothing you could say that would hurt me” has been the biggest lie of all, because of course when you lot showed up (Aada’s work colleagues), I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. The very least you could do is send me some swag through the mail.

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.

After all the shit we’ve been through, I’m still finishing up this entry in tears because despite everything, I’m losing my favorite person. But I think that “my favorite person” has been an idea for a long time, and she’s not real. I’ve never gotten to sit down with her and hammer out details on what is acceptable to say and what isn’t, so no wonder my blog is an absolute shit show when she reads. The one thing that makes me sad is that when she reads, she does not take in my thoughts and feelings. She does not see me as a separate person. If she doesn’t agree with something I thought and felt, it is not that we’re different, it’s that I lied.

For instance, I said, “I do not want you to feel like you’re cheating on your husband when you’re talking to me.” That doesn’t mean that Aada has ever actually felt this way. It meant it was something I worried about. I didn’t lie about jack shit, because if Aada had said, “I’ve never felt that,” I would have been relieved and that would have been the end of the conversation.

She says that she is also not the person I portray here, and that I agree with wholeheartedly. I only know her in 2D, while the rest of her friends and family get to experience her laughter. I have never heard her laugh….

And I’m sure not laughing now. I broke a ton of boundaries after I thought it was safe, because there was nothing I could say that would hurt her.

When the best thing for me would probably have been not to talk at all.