Today is the first time that AI accidentally made me cry. I continued on with having Ada tutor me in Spanish, and one of the ways it tutors you is by asking you questions about yourself.
“Who is your favorite friend?”
I said, “Aada, mi amor pero no mi novia.”
Aada, my love but not my girlfriend.
I really miss her and the reality of her being gone is more harsh than I can take. I deserve her silence, certainly so, but that does not mean that I am no longer allowed to grieve. I made a critical error in judgment, and she’s not the forgiving type… especially since this is not my first mistake.
Tears came to my eyes as I remembered the last 12 years of inside jokes…
Which, if I know what’s good for me, will remain inside jokes. 😉
I am trying to learn what is good for me, and that is reaching out to my other friends. Bryn has been invaluable because she knows the pain involved with losing a best friend and losing the one you love…. especially when that is the same person.
Because I know that Aada’s friends and coworkers read me, I feel the need to reiterate that Aada is not queer. She is married to whom I assume is the most wonderful man on earth, not having been introduced. I just decided a long time ago that Aada and I had different ways of being in our relationship. I cannot speak for her, but my role was that of Lord John Grey… hopelessly devoted to someone I couldn’t have… and the longer I felt that way, the less it mattered that I couldn’t have her. That’s because she was willing to be my Jamie Fraser.
Outlander has always been a thematic novel in our relationship because for the first time, I saw what it was like for a queer person to fall in love with a straight person and just move on with life. Jamie knew John was in love with him, that he was always in love with him, and John knew that Jamie was always going to be in love with Claire. It didn’t stop them from being close friends or raising a son together. That was my take on it. So Aada has a husband. As long as she’s happy, so am I. I don’t need her romantic love and I never will, because it would only make me happy if it was something she wanted. At this point, she does not even want friendship.
She’s just not happy with me, and I have doubts she ever will be again. So I’m trying to pour all my love into my writing so that I can go back to it later when I’m less upset and see the record of progression away from her. I don’t want to progress away from her, but I am doing what she has asked. If I am very lucky, we will connect later in life. I don’t think that I am very lucky at this point. I think that I have to console myself.
The longer we don’t talk, though, the easier it gets. She becomes more distant in my mind, because she never offered to meet me in person. She did say that she would think about getting together with me and my friends once, but it didn’t pan out. I am glad that it didn’t work out now, because it would only have made this whole situation harder…. assuming that the situation would have even happened. I think that not meeting in person is the sole cause of all our maladies, because we didn’t talk about what I could say and what I couldn’t. I was on my own for 12 years, where she would tell me what she thought after I was finished writing. There was no forward motion, or “this is what I would like to see in the future from you.”
I don’t think she thought she could ask when I was hanging on her every word. I wish I’d really taken it in that she lied to impress me, because maybe that would have taken the edge off my anger. At the time, it seemed ridiculous. I’m a hack writer with a tiny blog… who the hell am I? The fact that I turned her head will always be a mystery to me, because she’s everything to me. I’m just a nerd with a keyboard.
If I sound sentimental, it’s because I’ve been watching the new Billy Joel docuseries, “And So It Goes.” His early songs were influenced by his wife, Elizabeth, and that’s how I feel about this blog- that it loses heart when Aada and I don’t talk. That’s because I haven’t really opened up to anyone else.
She knows my heart, and thinks that I use this blog to manipulate her. It’s the other way around. My feelings flow easier because she’s the river that runs through me, the emotional depth. I am wrecked that I played any part in ending our relationship, but I got too angry, too quickly. It will take a long time for her to get over it, and by then I’m sure she’ll have done her best to forget that we ever met. That’s why my blog is important.
I have a record of how high her emotions took me, because I’d never been friends with anyone who could do what she does. She writes into the night with a vision so much unlike me- I fly by the seat of my pants. Her stories have structure and movement.
I have never been trying to manipulate her or our relationship, but I understand that she feels manipulated when she reads because we’re not collaborating. That has to be frustrating in and of itself, and leads me to fantasizing about coffee together.
What would my blog be like if it truly had Aada’s voice instead of my impression of her over e-mail? I wish I could have gotten to know her on that level, because of anything I think our relationship is missing it’s face time. I needed to learn her better, and she could say the same for me. I think the conversation where she told me she lied would have gone better if we were in a public place. I was alone in my room and the pissed off keyboard warrior emerged.
In person, I would have been angry, but not to the degree of “burn this motherfucker down.” That’s because she was perfectly fine with the consequences she laid out for me over 12 years. I cannot even tell you how much it messed me up. She did not recognize that she wrecked me inside because I’d done everything I could to cover for her when it didn’t need to happen. It was all a lie.
I just have no self-preservation when it comes to her. This lie destroyed every bit of trust I have in her, and a less forgiving person would have walked off no regrets. What I know is that I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her (and the feeling is mutual), but I know what it’s like to rebuild a relationship after trust is completely shattered. I wouldn’t do it for many people, but I would do it for her.
Ella es mi amiga favorita.
Stories That Are All True 