“You will never get what it is you want from him, that is to say, fair dealing…any further hopes will well and truly be dashed if you dare to entertain them.”
That’s not what I want, really.
What I want, more than anything, is closure. I want this to be done. I am sick to my very soul of this continually popping up and spearing me, again and again. Just when I think that my anger has burned it out of me for good, something else comes along, and I’m laid bare again.
I envy that others have that opportunity for closure.
I’m tired of wrestling with feeling like I’m going through another divorce; tired of feeling ridiculous for letting my guard down; tired of fearing that he and I might be more similar than I want to admit — I do not want to be that man.
I’m tired of weakness — feeling it, public portrayal of it, etc.
I just want this DONE.
My apologies if by commenting I have somehow brought you any more pain, it would not be my intent to do so.
Know that it is not weakness to want connection with others. It is certainly not weakness to be hurt when you find that something you cared about was truly an illusion.
It is wholly within your power to not be that which you have seen in him. That you feel as you do about all which has come to pass is the best proof of all that you are not as he is.
He could not have acted in the manner in which he has if he actually had feelings for the others within is sphere of influence.
D.
More than ever, it will be good to see you in two days…
Nah — if I didn’t want comments, I’d have disabled them.
Allowing myself to feel hurt so constantly feels like weakness to me. “Get over it, already” is what I keep telling myself.
Thanks. :)
Grog. There will be much with the grog around the fire.
Many would say drinking is not the answer, but for me it certainly helps. Not to drown things out, but to release them; in true Irish wake fashion. The warriors must mourn the loss of their fallen comrade after all, because really, that’s exactly what it feels like has happened; our comrade fell to lesser powers.
So, much with the drinking. Maybe there’ll even be some ready by Saturday. No promises, it needs time to sit, but just maybe…
In the meantime, Jameson’s will do just fine. :)
Something else:
that’s exactly what it feels like has happened; our comrade fell to lesser powers.
Coincidentally enough, that’s exactly how I finally came to grips with my divorce: The realization that the woman I had fallen in love with no longer existed. I could mourn her, and I could deal with the person who shared her face and her name much easier after that.
Thank you for reminding me of that.
It is almost the same here. It’s not so much that Mike ceased to exist. If your experience is as mine was in similar circumstances, Mike never really exists as you believed him to previously.
However, the grief is the same. It is straight up the pain of loss.
D.
Allowing myself to feel hurt so constantly feels like weakness to me. “Get over it, already” is what I keep telling myself.
I read your words and I feel angry for you. Angry that this is what you have been taught, in the way that men are, to believe that this is what you should be.
It is as much a lie as so many others we are socialized to believe.
You once said to me that Mike was the first male friend you had let yourself have in a very long time. From that statement, I would assume that Mike was the first person you had really let inside, other than Laura, since the time of your divorce.
If that is the case, you cannot underestimate the magnitude of what it meant for you to open yourself to real connection. Divorce, particularly one as acrimonious as you survived, leaves deep scars, some we don’t even realize are there until we trip over them years later, blithely living our lives.
It seems, from out here, that you have run face first into one of those walls. A part of yourself you didn’t realize had been marked by the dissolution in your life, the still burning embers of which have been kicked up by an emotionally similar experience. One brings echos of the other, intensifying all.
But here’s the thing, Gareth, the more you try to tamp down the emotions you are feeling about this, the more they will intensify, like a shaken bottle that has been corked. You must let yourself feel this pain, and through the process of letting this wash over you and away from you (just like the invocation regarding fear) you will see it’s path and there will be nothing left in it’s wake. And perhaps, if you let yourself feel it fully it will take from you in its wake some of what’s still lingering there from your divorce.
To love is to risk. To risk is to live. You made the right choice in opening up to someone. That he was not what he appeared to be is not a reflection upon you. You knew that there was something off there, I know that you knew that because we discussed that point specifically before this all blew into a thousand incandescent shards. You wanted to believe the best of him, though.
That is the proof that your divorce did not destroy you. That proof is why this entire experience, however painful is in the end worthwhile for you to have gone through, even as you drink deeply of the sorrow in its wake.
Allow yourself to be human, Gareth. Because you are, no matter how much you would like to hide your light behind a mask of cutting cynicism and wrap yourself in a cloak of anger to ward off the pain of living, one of the good ones.
D.
Oh well said, fine lady, here here! I agree- it has been a real pleasure for those of us around you to get to know you, Gareth.
Some things are worth breaking your heart for. I guarantee better times are ahead.