Last night, I made a decision to move forward for myself against what I thought others would say. Last night, I met up with my ex (both friend and relationship) for coffee. For those of you who do not know the seriousness of that choice, let me step backwards for a second.
My last year of college I decided to engage in a relationship with a girl. No, I’m not a lesbian. For the reasons “why” are simple: I was alone, curious and mesmerized. Due to the fact that we both went to a southern Christian university, our relationship was a secret. The fact that it was a secret made the relationship that much more insatiable. For several months we managed to keep our story a secret until March. For one reason or another, Anna had an ex that wouldn’t leave us alone. Jealous of our “friendship”, Jessica pursued Anna harder, thus making me suspect foul play. About March affair one happened. Anna and I regrouped, but then by July affair two with Jessica happened. Then again, we regrouped and by December the final stone was thrown. I was out after that.
In case you’ve never been in a relationship with the same sex, let me share with you the overwhelming weight of emotion felt within the relationship. Why didn’t I leave after the first time? Emotions. The idea of being without the person I crossed the line with was this unfathomable thought. Not only was I hiding from everyone I ever knew and valued important in my life, I had crossed a line of shame and embarrassment. Do I regret it? No. But do I wish I would have gone about it differently? Yes.
Long story short, I told her after the last encounter with Jessica that I was threw. I didn’t want anything to do with her or anyone she knew. I changed my number, blocked her from my email and erased everyone to do with her from my life. She was silent for a month or two, then called my work (a number I can’t avoid her having). I yelled, demanding my freedom and her leaving me alone forever. Throughout the full spring season she would pop in like that. Sometimes (more often than not) I would be upset about her, so when she would contact me I would yell and hash out the whole ordeal. From beginning to end I would go over every detail until I was drained of caring.
As I tried understanding what happened and learned to move on from it, I had this overwhelming sense of anger within me concerning the entire mess. I would sometimes call her to yell, hoping that would release this anger from me. Never was I successful. So, why did I meet her up for coffee last night? I was hoping to some how say whatever it was I’ve been thinking and release myself from memories cruel bondage. I wanted to either say it all and walk away or listen to her story and still walk away.
I told her last night a variety of things:
-I don’t want you in my life anymore because I don’t believe anything you say.
-I miss your friendship, but I can’t give you another chance because there’s too much to loose.
-I don’t hate you, so much, as I hate the whole situation.
-I’ve moved on with my life and have managed to do it without you, which I like.
-You have to do this part (starting a new job, paying all your bills on your own, etc.) on your own and not with someone else to carry you.
-I still have much anger over you selecting Jessica over me several times and I fight every day to not hate my past.
-You made this mistake and now you have to get yourself through it.
-I’m not ready for your friendship, because I’m going to have to stop carrying about you to truly believe your stories. So, that if you lie, it I won’t loose anything.
-I don’t believe you. (the resounding gong of the evening)
We hashed out the whole story all over again, but this time I told the full truth. I told her that in March I was ready to end the relationship and just be friends. That it wasn’t until Jessica came back into the picture I wanted to only win. Yes, I had a dependency on Anna and wanted to not be alone. I told her that throughout the relationship I went back and forth from wanting to truly be with her verses just wanting to win over Jessica. (Trust me reader: she was not worth loosing to.)
I told her that I missed her friendship, because we did actually (in the beginning) had a great friendship. We laughed, talked about everything and just had fun.
Reader: I miss her friendship, but when I got home last night I went over and over each thing she said. I couldn’t believe her. What she said about how Jessica and her haven’t spoken since March? Or how she said she slipped to Jessica’s sister about Jessica’s affair with her sister’s husband? I just don’t believe her. Anna had a crafty way of making the listener want to believer her. Trust me, the part of me that missed her friendship, wanted to believe her. I wanted so badly to take what she was saying as gold, but there’s too much to loose in jumping into her words. How often did I believe her and she bold-faced lied to me?
Oh, some of her storied were ridiculous in how she would actually make up things that no one even asked about! During last summer, I saw a councilor and the one piece of information I have remembered from that whole session was “even if she doesn’t lie about Jessica, she will always lie about something.”
Perhaps, just perhaps, she’s stopped lying. Am I going to believe her and give her a chance? No. Not yet. There’s still too much to loose.
The best thing that happened last night was I did something I knew I needed to do regardless of how I knew people around me would have thought. It was very good for me to let all I was carrying off my chest. It was fantastic telling her “no”. Telling her that this is the choice she’s made to end up where she is and this is my choice to go my life without her in it.
So far, so good. We’ll see where we stand in a month or two. Perhaps, we won’t be standing in this place at all? Perhaps, she and I will have moved on? Perhaps, I will finally let go all this emotion? Perhaps.
