I realized that I didn’t feel strongly one way or the other about Sam romantically, but that I wanted her to participate in my life on some level if she was open to it. I thought a handwritten note would be the best way to show apology, but I didn’t want her kids to read it before she did and receive intel.
So, I just put my name, address, and phone number plus a short note saying I’d love to see her if she was interested. No hearts.
But I meant them.
That is all love- realizing that someone was so dynamic in your life that you’re over the hurt that a breakup caused and just want their energy around you. We only dated for three weeks before Sam flipped out and dumped me. Yet her personality had such an impact on me that it was worth forgiving her for it.
I’ve thought about reaching out to her since i got here in December, but I hadn’t had the confidence to drop something in her mailbox until today.
I think that has a lot to do with being tired of being lonely on every level. I don’t even have a buddy to go do things with, and Sam would be a great one. She’s tapped into every musical outlet in the city. She’s a social butterfly, going to concerts often. What worked well was that an extrovert was willing to drag me out of my house. That’s how introverts manage.
And if you read anything into ink color, I was a dumbass and wrote everything in pink. I am not ready for *anything* having to do with pink letters. Sam actually hurt me pretty bad, and it took longer than three weeks to get over it, which was definitely not amusing.
Bryn said it best. “You’re not really angry with her. You’re angry she busted your fairy tale.” She was right. Anger at Sam faded quickly compared to the loss I felt that I was not going to be a girlfriend and have her kids around me.
Now, I am immune to fairy tales, but maybe one day I’ll be able to enjoy them again.
It was another instance in which I am humbled after popping off and I’d like to make amends for it. Just because my heart was broken doesn’t make my words okay, and I am also humbled that Aada said them to me long ago. It’s a message that resonates with me today because Aada reads and writes fairy tales. I am guilty of busting my own with her and constantly asking to be forgiven for things I said when I was in many kinds of moods.
I put her through a hell she didn’t deserve, and I know that because again, I don’t have to remember what I did that was so awful I drove her away. I wrote it all down. There’s 12 years of history of us getting close and blowing out, the pattern that needs to stop.
Recognizing that pattern is the first step to creating healthy relationships in the future. Secure connections require being careful with what you say and even more careful with what you do. Your actions and your words have to line up. You cannot lie in any way, shape, or form. Covering up the real issue because it’s hard for you to get the words out only leads to more and more trouble down the road. You can read all about it starting in June of 2013.
So, I am choosing to be healthy with Sam and be as sincere as I can, not letting her in too fast and being diligent about it because I let her in too quickly before and our relationship turned mercurial fast. I am done with mercurial relationships because I’m too old for it. Aada and all our drama was too much for both of us. We both need to redirect our attention into relationships that feed us and stop hating on each other.
Just because I was hurt doesn’t make my words okay. It doesn’t matter that they were directed at an audience and not at her. It made her feel bad because she could not trust that the loving things I said about her were also true.
My friends on the ground will always know that I love them because they have more to go on, and I believe in that fact. I’m now trying to nurture it where I didn’t before. I thought of Aada as some kind of authority in my life and she is, puffing herself up and being really hard on me (historically. This time being hard on me was justified.), sometimes scaring me into a type of submission because I was all of the sudden afraid to bring up issues.
She explodes when you bring them up, and distances herself while she licks her wounds in private without realizing that you get more accomplished by increasing communication and understanding after conflict so that it doesn’t bubble up again. You have a solid shot at changing a pattern the more you understand each other.
I am starting to get tired of these toxic relationships, and it takes two to tango. I can only realize I’m the common denominator, and establish more self-respect. Learning more about how to de-escalate a conflict than I already do, because to some people the way I do it is pedantic. I need to know what it is about me that makes so many people understand me to an enormous degree, while others fight me in defense. Maybe that’s just my win/lose rate.
Where I got tripped up was making Aada so high on the totem pole that no other priority mattered, and she didn’t have that much energy for me. I was lost in a world of rumination because as a writer, she lit my brain on fire.
I am looking for that kind of chemistry, and Sam sets my brain on fire for music. I think we’d work well together as long as we weren’t competing with each other for anything (she’s a mezzo, I’m a lyric……. eye roll…. how did we not know this wouldn’t work out? It’s not like there weren’t signs. Plus, I’m a trumpet player. Between my diva status and my lead trumpet background, she joked that my ego wouldn’t fit through the door.
It doesn’t, but that’s all social masking and trying to have a good time despite the fact that I’d rather be home reading… I cover up how I really feel about myself in person because in person, that person doesn’t have time to hear me like they have 10 minutes to read an entry.
That’s led to my detriment in a lot of ways. Because people read me, they hear my voice in their heads regularly. Therefore, they think they talk to me a lot more often than they actually do. Our communication suffers.
Other people see me suffering and think it’s not a good idea to intrude. It’s always a good idea to intrude, because I might need the interruption. I’m trying to interrupt myself frequently and take breaks, walking away from the Internet entirely and going out into the world.
I felt bad that my handwriting was SO TERRIBLE. Yet, I wanted to approach Sam with the least amount of investment on her part. That I wasn’t putting her on the spot to say yes or no. She’s got my number. If I hear from her, great. If I don’t, it will be sad, but I will have my answer and that’s worth celebrating all on its own.
I want to start a new chapter, but this time, it has to be a nonfiction.
Stories That Are All True 