This is going to be another post that is largely devoid of wacky hijinks and so on. I'm in a reflective mood, and once again in need of getting my thoughts out there. It's not terribly important that they reach an audience so much as it's important that I verbalize them and make sense of them for myself. If I can engage a reader or two with it as well, that's fantastic, but this isn't a post you should be looking to if chortles are your quest.
It's interesting to me how time and growth radically alter approach and perspective. Of course it seems obvious when it's worded that way, but I still find it fascinating.
Take my first romantic relationship for example. I was around 16 when it began, and I was absolutely convinced it was going to last forever. I was ridiculously happy, and the companionship and connection that we shared was intoxicating (as love always is). When that eventually ended (which seems almost inevitable in retrospect, given our youth and naivete and half-formed beliefs/personalities; all things common to every teenager, and all things teens tend to hold aloft as if they were trophies before we figure out that we don't know everything and we have a lot of growing up to do), I was absolutely crushed. I was completely destroyed, and I was totally unprepared to deal with the loss. I effectively shut down for almost two years. I spent much of that time more or less alone. I didn't stop spending time with my friends, but I spent the majority of my time in my own head, thinking about things, trying to figure them out; trying to exert an influence on the universe to change the way things were by sheer willpower. That worked just about as well as you'd think it would: the universe continued about its business, completely unaware of my pains.
For a long time, I was inconsolable. I carried a torch for that girl for a long time. And for a while, that sort of thing is a romantic gesture. Then, eventually, it becomes unwise, and ultimately pathetic and pitiable. I held my torch up far, far past the latter point.
Because you see, if there is one thing about that relationship that I'm absolutely sure about, it's that I DID love her. I loved her more than anything. What we had was genuine and real and good for who we were at that point in our lives, and I loved her completely and unconditionally. But I was so attached to that relationship that I was unwilling to allow it to fade away, which unfortunately led to a very ungraceful, dragged-out ending that probably caused both of us a lot more pain than we needed to go through, and I'm afraid I can't claim innocence, because a lot of that turmoil didn't need to go down. I was a TERRIBLE ex-boyfriend; all presumption and petulance and outright refusal to accept the realities of the situation. And that's the one regret I have about my relationship with that girl: that I wasn't yet man enough to let her go when she needed to go, and I tried so desperately to hold on that I'm sure I left scars where I dug in my metaphorical fingernails trying to maintain a grip on something that had already slipped away.
Now, I'm older, and time has passed. My wounds from that time have all healed, and from this distance, I can see clearly that that relationship was never one meant to last. For all our honest affection for one another, we were a deeply dysfunctional couple. We were trying to build a permanent, solid structure from scratch while we were still pouring the cement for the foundation. We were rife with immaturities and insecurities and unhealthy codependence, and we weren't ourselves yet. You can't plan for the future until you're completely self-aware in the present, and that's exactly what we tried to do. The adults we grew into are very different people than the teenagers in love were. As a teenager, no matter how confident and sure of yourself you may be, no matter how well you think you know who you are and where you're going, you are, by nature, in a state of flux. I didn't solidify into the person I am now until I was 20 or so. During the period in which we split, I was incredibly unstable and uncertain in a huge selection of ways that weren't apparent to me. I was struggling to reconcile an upbringing of religious faith with my changing beliefs and values, and ultimately I failed to do so and realized that it had been a very long time since I'd actually believed in God. She maintained her beliefs. I was sure that I was So Very Mature, and with time realized that I hadn't even been close enough to maturity to shoot it with a sniper rifle, let alone actually possess it. We didn't share as many goals or dreams as we'd thought at first.
If we'd known how different we would end up being, would we still have joined hands in the beginning? I don't know that we would have. And that's one reason I'm very glad that humans lack that kind of foresight. For all the difficulties, for all the pain, for all the abruptness and the pains of adjustment and the things we would both change if we could go back and do it all over, I'm glad I shared that time with her. Regardless of what we'd become, we loved each other in those moments, when we needed it. We made sense to one another and kept each other on our feet through a period that is notoriously confusing and turbulent. We loved honestly and earnestly, and it was a beautiful thing for that alone.
There are quite a few parallels between that relationship and the one I've just fallen out of, and the parallels make me a bit uncomfortable. This romance was on a much shorter timescale, but its magnitude was of no less impact to me. Greater impact, in fact. With a couple more years under my belt, I have become much more confident in myself; much more certain of my own identity. I've sorted out who I am, and along comes a girl.
The story goes as it always does. Instantaneous connection. It seems to come from nowhere. Not necessarily eyes-meet-across-a-crowded-room-and-lo-and-behold-love-came-to-pass instantaneous, but a very realistic, organic immediacy. Right out of the box, everything just works, and the more time passes, the deeper that gets, the more right it feels. It's a platform I can stand on without questioning my steps. We start building, and the foundation is solid this time. We aren't sinking. We shift up a gear, and then another.
Then suddenly we explode. It's not a violent explosion; there aren't billows of flame or thunderous crashes, or any sound and fury at all. There's just a sickening grinding crunch, and we've stopped, and she's walking away.
Now to my dilemma. Do I hold on to hope? Is there REALLY a chance that this isn't the ending of the story? Do I dare keep holding this torch? If so, how long do I hold it? At exactly what point does it become foolish or pathetic if I do? I don't know where the lines are. I don't know where much of ANYTHING is, honestly. I'm disoriented and dizzy.
You can't change something by merely wanting it to change. But there's also not anything I can DO to change this situation, which leaves me feeling out of control; a position I am not comfortable with at all. There's little I hate so much as something broken that I can't even try to fix. But there's nothing here for me to do. She's not ready for a commitment as serious as the one we had. I can't make her ready, no matter what I do. But that leaves me in a position of helplessness; unable to act on a circumstance that is very important to me. It makes me feel like a bicycle repairman on board a malfunctioning space shuttle. As much as I want to solve the problem, I only have two real options: hope the ship's diagnostics systems repair themselves or hop in an escape pod and bail. If the former, I could end up going down with the ship. If the latter, I leave behind something amazing that doesn't have to be doomed.
This is all a frustratingly familiar sensation, and one of the most irksome aspects of it is that all other concerns tend to feel trivial by comparison. I can certainly work on improving myself while waiting to see how things resolve one way or another, but I must admit that it feels a bit like lifting weights while the gym is on fire instead of either leaving the building or getting a damn fire extinguisher.
And my decision is made infinitely more difficult by the complexities of my own emotions. Uncertainty aside, I absolutely still love this girl more than I could even begin to express, and hearts don't come with switches you can flip to just turn that off. So I can't even make an OBJECTIVE decision, haha. The love that tells me to keep hoping and the pragmatic side that tells me to accept defeat and get the pain over with now rather than potentially saving some up for later by risking to hope combine to create a rich dish of fear, doubt, hope, and everything else all bouncing around like ping-pong balls in a dryer.
And even if I were to choose to give up on this, as I've said before, I've never been good at accepting my fate. I'm not sure I know how.
But something that truly concerns me is this: Whatever decision is made, whatever happens here, will I look back on this and feel the same way I do about that first relationship? Will I say that this was good for the time but not ultimately what each of us needed? Will I see in hindsight that we didn't share as many goals and dreams as we'd thought?
I don't know the answers to any of these questions. I don't know if there ARE answers to some of them, or if there will be. All I know is that in the internal struggle between hope, pragmatism, and fear, hope is winning thus far. I hope that's a good thing.
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