Yesterday's gone
Sep. 30th, 2001 03:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kellinatorI found out from Natalia that our old college friend Claire is engaged. I'm happy for her. But I'm also weirded out -- are we really old enough? From my college friends, several are engaged or practically engaged, some are married, one's already divorced. In college, it looked like I would be among the first to get married; now, it's looking like I'll be one of the last.
Things with Joe and me always seemed so perfect -- we were made for each other. We never got bored with each other. But along the way something went wrong.
I'll never forget when I realized I had to end it. It was the summer of 2000, and Natalia and I were living together in Nashville and talking one night, and the talk turned to him. And Natalia was like, "You have to do it." That, combined with Jason's statement that my eyes were totally dead, did it.
Even as I tried to break up with him, I didn't want to do it. I can tell you a million reasons why I did it -- Joe's laziness, his spoiledness, his mother, who I still call "Martha Stewart on crack" behind her back. Scars from mistakes I made that never quite healed, despite both our efforts. Too many parties where he looked on disapprovingly while I downed Tolman 3 Lethal Lemonade. His unwillingness to try new restaurants. How he always had to know everything about my past. The time when I asked him for space and instead he started calling three times a day. The way he thought, and still thinks, a year later, that my world should revolve around him.
I look at all these old photographs, at how we beamed at each other, and ask myself, what happened? Because I know that it's over. I don't want him back; I doubt we could ever get back together. I have moved on, though he seems unwilling or unable to. I just want to figure out what went wrong, and if it was my fault like I think it must have been.
Things with Joe and me always seemed so perfect -- we were made for each other. We never got bored with each other. But along the way something went wrong.
I'll never forget when I realized I had to end it. It was the summer of 2000, and Natalia and I were living together in Nashville and talking one night, and the talk turned to him. And Natalia was like, "You have to do it." That, combined with Jason's statement that my eyes were totally dead, did it.
Even as I tried to break up with him, I didn't want to do it. I can tell you a million reasons why I did it -- Joe's laziness, his spoiledness, his mother, who I still call "Martha Stewart on crack" behind her back. Scars from mistakes I made that never quite healed, despite both our efforts. Too many parties where he looked on disapprovingly while I downed Tolman 3 Lethal Lemonade. His unwillingness to try new restaurants. How he always had to know everything about my past. The time when I asked him for space and instead he started calling three times a day. The way he thought, and still thinks, a year later, that my world should revolve around him.
I look at all these old photographs, at how we beamed at each other, and ask myself, what happened? Because I know that it's over. I don't want him back; I doubt we could ever get back together. I have moved on, though he seems unwilling or unable to. I just want to figure out what went wrong, and if it was my fault like I think it must have been.
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Date: 2001-09-30 08:01 am (UTC)Relationships are hard work. They're a lot of giving and a lot of giving up on taking. On both sides. When you find someone who's willing to give as much as you are, to the point where your foreheads hurt from meeting in the middle so often, you know you're on to something. And sometimes that doesn't happen and it's nobody's fault. It's just not something the two were meant to share. Or ready for.
Sometimes I think Jason and I are like that. Really really good for each other. Totally unready.
Anyway. Don't blame yourself. Don't look for faults. Take what you can from what was once a beautiful thing. Learn what you can about where it went wrong. Don't dwell, but hold that part inside you. Move on.
Isn't that always the best thing to do? (And the hardest?)