Confidence and Communication

Things were pretty shitty last time I wrote, but they seem to be looking up now. I've learned a lot about what was going wrong while I was down in TX and I'm going to try to fix it. It's too good to just give up like this. Part of me really wants to move back home but I would always ALWAYS regret giving up on such a great relationship, no matter how many other people I dated or how much rationalizing I did.

Big discovery today: I suck at communicating. I bottle my feelings up like crazy, even the good ones. This includes the feelings that let my significant other know how much I love and appreciate her. This probably has a lot to do with why I have trouble forming strong relationships with people as well. I've gotten good at the high-level chitchat stuff. I can usually carry a conversation with a new person...I've learned the right kinds of questions to ask and how to recognize when I'm talking about myself too much...things like that. But I think there's a "next step" after all that stuff. There's some sort of leap of faith that one must take to move a relationship to the next level. I suspect it has to do with overcoming the fear of being judged and exposing one's self to the other, making one's self vulnerable. The risk is you get judged negatively and end up hurt, but it's a risk that you need to take in order to become accepted by others. How can they accept you if they've never seen your true self?

It takes confidence to consistently leave yourself vulnerable. Not everyone is going to be a good friend or lover. When it doesn't work out you have to be able to say "that's okay, I'm still worthy of love" and then move on to the next person without becoming guarded. You can't stop yourself from saying things because you're afraid they'll sound weird. As long as you express confidence in yourself people will come along eventually who will be on the same wavelength. It's a very natural thing really, but you need to be able to roll with the punches.

It's no surprise I have trouble with this really. In 6th-8th grade i opened up and got totally destroyed. I was a slightly weird kid. Just enough for the bullies in my grade to grab hold and tear me apart. I never opened up again to anyone in my school after that. Not once. I'm not sure how I opened up to the friends I made in high-school honestly. I guess they were all a little offbeat like me. It must have eventually made me feel comfortable enough to let them see myself. And even though I was really messed up in those days they still loved and accepted me somehow. That may be something worth exploring in another blog entry at some point. Back to work for now.

ouch

The loss just hit me as I was stepping out of the shower. Hard. I tried to hold it back but it burst through and left me wailing and curled up on the bathroom floor, muffling my cries in my towel so that the neighbors didn't think someone was getting murdered in my apartment. She was a part of me...a HUGE part of me. More than I ever knew and perhaps more than I wanted. I lost important parts of myself because I chose to replace them with her. I can not imagine ever being with someone who offers their love to the world on such a deep and beautiful level. I find myself worrying that I will carry our relationship like a scar. That it will become the lens through which I judge any who come along and dare to try and take her place. It's possible that this is just because the wounds from our separation are so raw.

Paradoxically, it hurts so so SO much more when there's no bitterness at the end. What the hell are you supposed to do when you can't demonize this person with whom you absolutely have to end a relationship. Instead of being able to squash all that love with resentment and telling yourself with the utmost certainty that things are better off, you just have to walk away. I tell myself things are better off for both of us and I'm trying so hard to believe it but this nagging feeling won't go away. I guess that's what happens when you're on the receiving end of the breakup...or when the breakup is a direct result of your actions. I know I could have done things better if I had been in a better place myself. If I had worked harder on myself and become a more mature person over the past two or three years, I could have done this. I could have accepted her love in full and returned it ten-fold. We could have been something incredible.

But I'm not that man. At the moment I feel as though I am still a boy in many ways. I am far too emotionally immature for the woman she has become. I have seen her grow in leaps and bounds these past four years. When we met she had some pretty heavy emotional baggage and not a penny to her name. But somehow I didn't let that bother me. I didn't care about any of that and I pursued her relentlessly because I loved her and saw how beautiful she was inside and out. I accepted her fully for everything she was and was not. She was and is, hands down, the most amazing person I have ever met. Not without her flaws, still human of course, but such a wonderful example of what a human being can be if they live to their full potential. She worked so hard to deal with that baggage and managed to excel during her college experience despite the difficulties she was facing. Everyone who meets her LOVES her. She is a social master and captures the hearts of anyone she talks to. All I can say is...Wow. Just wow. What a woman. I wish with all my heart that I could have been ready for her. Right now it feels like I have totally botched my one shot at true happiness.

I hope time will heal these wounds.

the inevitable decline

First, it's time to figure out what happened. I think it's safe to say I screwed up, but even if I hadn't I'm fairly certain things would have ended up the same. When it came to the topic of marriage, she was completely ready and I was not. But it's not that I don't want to marry her specifically...up until a few months ago I had been firmly convinced that marriage was not for me. Only recently have I begun accepting the idea that yeah, maybe I do want to be married someday. After all, why let a stubborn distaste for ceremony stand in the way of building a beautiful partnership with someone special to me? So I've decided that I'll buy into the whole marriage thing...but that doesn't mean I'm ready yet. And that doesn't mean I can give her any guarantee of when I'll be ready.

People keep telling me "you just know". The way I see it, something's going to click in my head eventually and I'll be ready. When? I have no idea. I am in no shape for it right now though. My goals and convictions are terribly weak. I grew far too complacent during this relationship and lost sight of all the self-improvement work I had been doing before-hand. I think this is a big reason for why I'm not ready for marriage and for why we fell apart. I let myself get excited about the wedding ideas even though I wasn't really feeling it because she seemed so happy about it. If it makes her happy it'll make me happy, right?

Nope. That's a pretty clear symptom of the problem right there. Because I let her enthusiasm override my own feelings on the subject, I ended up sending very mixed signals about my readiness. Near the end she repeatedly accused me of playing mind games and toying with her future..and wants me to see a shrink. But I'm not sure if she realizes that at any given moment I was being as honest as I could...I just wasn't being true to myself. It was all downhill from there.

I'm pretty sure that neither of us is happy with the way things turned out but I think we both have this feeling deep down that it's for the best, even though right now it hurts like hell. Although I've been having breakdowns every few hours and crying like crazy I'm still not certain the full effect has hit me yet. Four years is a long time and what we had was pretty awesome. We survived a lot of tough times, not seeing each other for months on end at some points. We put a lot of work into making it last and now...only the wonderful memories remain. I feel like I could probably get her back if I tried...but I'm not sure if I should. I feel like I'd be holding her back at this point. She's so ready for the family life and I'm just not there yet. In the words of Ben Harper, sometimes you just have to walk away. She's going to do such amazing things though, oh man. I'm so proud of her...that's a topic for another post though.

So, basically, what went wrong was that I let my guard down. I changed...allowed myself to get thrown by the transition to a new home and take shelter in old habits. Not good. Time to build myself up again and get back on track. This detour to the deep south has derailed me pretty severely...but I have my job, my health, my family and friends. I will learn from this loss and will always cherish the time we spent together.

Enough rambling for now.

up up and away

A great four-year relationship has bitten the dust and the time has come for some personal growth. As always, writing will be an integral part of that process... Save a tree, start a blog.