Yes, you read that right, part IV (4, four). I'm omitting part III for now because it's passed in a bit of a flurry and also because I think part IV is more important for my emotinoal well-being right now.
Things went well with the girl I met before christmas. We stayed in contact through December, met up a few times and grew closer. I've convinced myself that being unemployed and living with parents is a good thing as it allows me the geographical freedom to pursue opportunities wherever they pop up so for the last two weeks I've been on work experience as a newspaper sub in Sussex and, following an offer from my beloved, I have been staying with her, as she lives closer to my new temporary office than my parents.
We got off to a good start and were happily co-habiting: sharing the cooking (once her work-mates had convinced her it was the right thing to do) cuddling on the sofa in front of Fred and Ginger films and taking it in turns to make the tea. I left her flat last week on the wings of love and couldn't wait to get back to her on Sunday evening.
The weekend passed with a mixture of tedious chores and numerous back-and-forths via text with the only person I wanted to be with. Sunday rolled around and eagrely I packed my duvet (I've been chivalrous enough to accept a place on the sofa-bed rather than push my luck trying to sleep with her at this early stage), shirts and shoes and set off. On arrival I was, dare I say, lukewarly accepted and took up station on the sofa with some reading I needed to do while she finished the innordinate amount of work she has now that January had started.
Goodness knows what happened but the dynamic of our relationship had changed already. Like a fool, I put it down to anxiety on both our parts and expected it to pass in a couple of days... only it didn't. Late nights working on her behalf all week meant that I was sat at (her) home twiddling my thumbs and making skype calls to the US (more on that in another post). The week went by and we seemed to drift further apart. Physical contact almost ceased and every time I went in to kiss her she'd turn her cheek and settle for a quick embrace before parting again.
The whole week I was doubly anxious about an interview I'd had the week before, which didn't help matters of congnitive clarity or marital bliss.
Last night, before she left work I got a text cancelling our evening cinema plans that I could have read one of two ways: 1) She wanted to spend the evening in and have some quality time to repair our waning relationship, or 2) She was breaking up with me.
It's been a while since I've been on the receiving end of the "It's not you, it's me" spiel and by god does it hurt. She went to great lengths to tell me how 'perfect' I was and how her 'wishes had come true', which, as you can imagine, doesn't make the truth that she's breaking up with me easier to take or, indeed, understand.
Why, then, if I'm so perfect, do you want to end it?
Earlier in the week I may have antagonised the situation by calling on her housemate when I was fed up of watching TV or reading and, in hindsight a stupid idea, asking about my relationship predecessors. The answer I got was a curt "You should be asking her", a logical response but not a helpful one. Needless to say I brought the subject up later in the week and was told "Exes are exes for a reason". Again, logical but not useful.
During our heartbreaking honesty session last night we talked about how little we knew of each other, a fact I was well aware of and one that I reminded her I sought to remedy by asking her about her and wanting to meet her friends etc.. Is it my fault she doesn't want to open up? What more could I have done? I have been courteous and unpressuring the whole time we've known each other yet it seemed that I was to blame for wanting to know the person I now formerly saw as long-term relationship material.
She said the "The zing has zinged", which reminded me of a Tim Minchin Lyric: "I called my girlfriend up on the phone and said 'Hey, g- girlfriend what's g- going wrong?'; She said 'I'm breaking it off with you I feel as if the m- m- magic is gone.'" I resisted to urge to paraphrase Mr Minchin with his lyrical response: "'Hey baby what 'you talkin' about I thought that everything was just fine?'; 'That's exactly the point, I just get so annoyed how you're so happy all the time'".
All this can be summed up in a human trait I've observed so often in failed relationships and one that I swore I would never let happen to me: a breakdown in communication. I can't help feel that If I'd raised my concerns earlier in the week that we could have done something to salvage the relationship and I'd still be flying high, resloved in the knowledge that although I'm still terribly Poor and Unknown, I can sleep soundly at night knowing that someone, somewhere wants me for who I am, not what I do (or don't do).
So it is with a leaden heart, chest pains, weak knees and wet eyes that I try to make sense of it all and hope that I will one day understand why she just wants to be friends. She explained that friends are far more valuable, a sentiment that I wholy endorse, but it doesn't change the fact that I didn't (and still don't) want to be friends with her: I wanted to be her boyfriend and she my girlfriend.
Time, as ever, will be the healer and given enough of it I know I'll pull myself together. She's not the first girl to break my heart, nor, I fear, will she be the last. My greatest hope now is that I learn something from this experience and that we can continue to be friends. On the drive to work I mulled over all the other women I've fallen into the 'friendship group' with and, in hindsight, maybe that's better. Right now though I've got a lot of drinking and crying to do.
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I can not understand why there is a 'comment' for people to post comments on, and you delete them? why's that?
ReplyDeleteIt's ideally for informed people whose opinion I value to provide constructive feedback. Rants from people who've never met me don't count, I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteSorry.
Well I'm clearly more informed than you are about things. And my feedback was "constructive" it was designed to help you look like less of an idiot next time.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Rest assured that your comment has been taken to heart and I appreciate your help.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNever waste life’s experiences – take the best bits, grow a bit, and dispose of the bad bits so that people can’t come and steal your identity..
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time a long long time ago. In a far away place. A baby girl was born. This baby girl was beautiful and bright, blissful, full of love and potential, and so much hope for the future.
In the beginning she was happy and carefree, able to drink freely from the cup of life and her cup runeth over. She had a sense of her divine purpose, she knew that she was important and had so much to share with the world.
And then something happened; she grew up. And as she grew she started to forget how beautiful, talented and special she was. She began to ignore the unique gifts that she was born to share, because she didn't have faith in them any more. She stopped being blissful, she no longer believed in her potential, she was now unable to give or receive the gifts of love that were offered to her. And as for the future, it ceased to exist for her.
So what happened to this baby girl born a creature of perfection, in bliss, full of hope and love:
Life.
And for the longest time this baby girl as she grew into a woman, believed that life was something that happened to her. She believed that she had no control of it, she was at it's mercy. A victim of the universe's cruel games, powerless in the face of so much adversity, cast adrift on a sea of uncertainty, waiting, for her prince charming to come and rescue her from the demons and monsters which ravaged her soul.
And as the demons slowly ate her alive, she lost all sense of who she was born to be, that beautiful bright creature full of potential. She believed the demons and monsters when they told her she was disgusting, talent less, unlovable and that she didn't deserve to be here. They fed on her fears and her insecurities, eating away at her very essence, until she had completely forgotten that she was a being of light, of love. And so she drifted off into a slumber of misery, which seemed to last for an eternity, where time and space stood still. A curtain of thorns grew up to protect her from the world outside.
Until one day a handsome prince happened upon this woman and took pity on her plight. He waved his wand of enlightenment, and broke through the curtain of thorns, so that there was now a chink of light. The woman who had become accustomed to the dark was fascinated by the light, so she moved toward It, at first it was blinding, and she retreated back into her thorny cell, but slowly and surely she found herself venturing out into the light more and more.
The darkness was still there lurking in the background and so she always had to make sure that she kept moving forward, so as not to fall under it's murky shadow again. But the more time she spent in the light the more she craved it, like a newborn its mother’s milk, she drank in the light and it lightened her soul. And the time she spent in the light, enabled her to reconnect with her divine purpose, her unique gifts. She had many teachers along the way who helped her to correct her course, and as she learned more and more about herself and her knowledge grew, the more able she was to imagine a brighter future, and the most important lesson that she learnt, was that sometimes we have to lose ourselves to find ourselves again.
When we feel that we are at our weakest hour, at the point were we no longer have the strength to fight or to live on, that is often when we are on the verge of something truly special. Because it is when we are at our weakest, that we are often strong enough to ask for and accept help from others, and this is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength, of bravery and courage, because only when we are willing to expose our vulnerability to others can we truly consider ourselves strong enough to change.