The List of Things That Suck

I had lunch today with Ryen and Renell. Mostly she just needed me to write a bunch of checks for her. There’s a difference between acceptance and closure. The difference I suppose in this case is about effort. Our relationship was always about effort. I’m not yet sure if I’ve decided whether it was too much effort or not enough. I’ve come, over the past week, to accept the finality of her decision. I got so used to the indecision that a move like this was devastating. I’ve been told, and keeping having to tell myself that in the long run it’s for the best and in the short run, someone else has to deal with her issues which is better for me. Okay, slowing down now. I have a jumble of points to make here and I don’t want to mix them up. I suppose I should expound on each. Here’s the list so far

I accept that she’s left and that any chance we had is LONG gone. I realized a long time ago that we just weren’t right. WE as a team weren’t right. She wasn’t happy and I wasn’t happy. We both had these images of each other. Neither fit the other’s image. It was just bad. Still we kept trying; I in my ways, and she in hers. Maybe it’s just because I didn’t know how else to handle it. More likely I was just dwelling on the past. I realistically couldn’t forgive her for cheating on me; especially not as many times as she did. I have forgiven her, but you don’t forget a betrayal like that and it doesn’t leave you much in the way of options for a permanent future. This isn’t a “sorry I spilled sauce on your favorite shirt and pants” this is an “I betrayed your deepest trust and the unique connection we shared.” I had forgiven her, I had tried to let her earn redemption and I had, I have been put through the pain again and again. They say that if you give a person enough rope they will hand themselves. I gave her the choice, the opportunity and the prompting to choose me and she rarely, if ever did. I gave her the rope, yet I feel hanged.

I will still need reminding that there is nothing there. As much as it made both of us unhappy to be together, it’s hard to get over the image of what I wanted…and still a part of me wants. We had some very good moments. There is a large part of me that wants to have more good memories. I realize that our chance came and went long ago. But I need to be helped, and need to be reminded that we don’t work. The issue with Renell is that we used to click very easily. Without trying we could strike up a conversation and build a connection. It’s hard to let go of that, even though I know the reality is that our chances were doomed long ago. Sometimes I will need to be reminded of that reality. It’s an ongoing process. That’s the push from acceptance to closure.

I will still need help to get closure. It’s a process that, like our relationship, requires both of us to communicate. We started when WE ended and will take help; from family, friends and from Renell. It will take effort, it will take respect. I don’t know if there is any left between the two of us, but I need help to get closure. I don’t watch much TV but I’ve followed enough of Friends to track some of the Ross/Rachel history via reruns. That’s what I feel like and honestly, shit’s not that funny. It was a sitcom so yeah, good one liners, but the reality of that kind of ongoing mess just isn’t funny. It’s painful. Now it’s ended, but my show doesn’t get cancelled. My season doesn’t end and I don’t have a team of writers determining my future plot lines. I have to do that shit myself and I need help.

WE were never a priority, I was always a convenience. It goes to the images we each had of the other. I wasn’t what Renell wanted. I had this image of a vibrant, uplifting energy in my life. I had this image of a person who knew what she wanted and could stand on her own to get it. I had tried to help her through what I thought was a slump. I though that same vibrant, incredible person was still in there and just needed a little help to stand on her own. My image of her was not reality and it was the image I had of Renell, not the reality that I wanted. I don’t know what image she had of me. I know she had one and that it wasn’t who I am. In the end, WE were never a priority for her. It was about the convenience of my being there in terms of what I could do for her. That doesn’t make for a relationship. It makes for a fractured reality.

I suppose that should make me question even more what it is that I’m sad about. If I realize how bad it was why be sad? I guess because we did have our great moments and I knew…know what we could have been. That I suppose is the catch. She asked me today what the catch was in her new relationship with Rick. The catch doesn’t have to be on her end. She’s suspicious that there is a catch and doesn’t want to fall for it. I don’t think the catch is on her end. I think the catch was that we could have been a good pair and just never got it to work. I could never depend on her and she feels the same. It’s odd that we both feel like it’s been a waste of five years. The difference I think is that she considers the waste to be from the time she was pregnant. I think the waste started before that. It should have just ended when I first learned she was cheating on me. It should have just been done. Fractured reality I suppose. We both had this image of what could be and the images just didn’t mesh. It was a waste of five years; it was a waste of effort, a waste of tears and on the day before my surgery a waste of alcohol.

The uncomfortable history with her parents has, I think, strained that some. From what she said, they encourage her relationship with Rick. They never did accept me. I’m not going to fault them for it entirely because I’m sure I didn’t handle things with Renell as well as I should have either. But having never been accepted by her family and her so strongly dependent on them, I should have known not to try. We both see it now as a waste of effort on both of our parts to try and forge something when her family doesn’t accept me. They accept Rick. That hurts some. They never gave me a chance, she never gave us much of a chance and she’s willing to do so now…for someone else. But, she has a chance now to be happy and I hope she ends up happy. Is that the acceptance that I need to find? For her to be happy, even if it’s with someone else? Who the fuck knows, but it’s still painful and I need to close it down.