So, tonight, I flip through all of my old journals to try and find the actual journal that I wrote-in when he and I broke up. I am very regretful of not documenting that break-up. I think it was so painful and intense at the time, that I just could not and was not able to write anything. I knew that I wrote a very short entry somewhere and I was determined to find it.
The entry is dated 7/4/2004 and it is two days after our 2 year anniversary. I am so dramatic and yet so honest at the same time. I wrote "It is over. We are over. There is no longer a 'we' anymore. My heart is totally broken." In my journal entry, I wrote that Robert has completely changed and is now condescending, impatient, intolerant, dismissive, and detached. I quoted him saying: "Whether you like it or not, I am more independent now and no longer as attached to you as before." He also said to me, "I don't know if I can be with someone who is so insecure that I have to constantly explain things to her."
I am slowly remembering these conversations now and the context of these conversations. It's no wonder I didn't call him back or want a reconciliation afterwards. I did not want to seek him out because he was being an asshole but I missed him nevertheless. It's still a blur to me, how we got to where we were. All I remember was it being the summer of my sophomore year in college. I was so busy with research. He was so busy juggling school and work. We were having less and less quality conversations on the phone and one of our last talks was him saying he felt "more emotionally distant" from me. I had been very upset with his use of the word "more." Why "more"? Was there much to begin with that I had been unaware of? We are surely physically distanced from each other, but I didn't know we were emotionally distant. Why use the word "more?" In retrospect, I think I should not have harped on this word choice, because our subsequent fight was simply unnecessary and completely provoked by me. I remember Robert being SO upset about my picking apart his words and being SO pissed at me for reading so much into what he was saying. Yes, I have a tendency to do that. And I now realize that insecurity has ALWAYS been a problem for me. So much of a problem that maybe this is why Robert didn't want to put up with me afterwards, maybe?
Nevertheless, I remember coming home after the summer research program and having some time to spend with Robert before going abroad to visit extended family. It was during that time at home that we really started to explode or fizzle (however way you want to look at it). It was then that we broke up. I remember having our 2 year anniversary together and not having it be great. I also remember-- vaguely-- having a dinner together and crying through it because Robert had said "we need to talk." I remember, still vaguely, that it was a very weird and confusing conversation. Robert had told me that he loved me but that things were changing. He said he was different now and he wasn't the same as before. He couldn't elaborate more on what that meant and I automatically started freaking out and wondering what that meant for us. What's different now? Why isn't he the same as before? What has changed? How does it affect us? Does it affect his feelings for me? I remember Robert saying that he still loved me and still wanted us, but that he was different now. I didn't get it. I completely did not get it. But we were going round and round in circles and it just did not make sense to me. Eventually I went home, confused as all hell. And I guess I continue to be as confused today, just not as emotionally invested, perhaps.
I also know that one of our last fights was on the day of our 2-year anniversary and I had been utterly disappointed by his disinterest in me. We watched the movie, The Butterfly Effect, and when I tried to cuddle with him and to hug and kiss him, he was quite unresponsive. He was apathetic about being intimate together whereas I could hardly contain celebrating our anniversary together with some physical love! Anyways, it was very humiliating for me to be physically (and passively) rejected for my advances toward him and I automatically felt like he was rejecting me. I felt rejected. I felt that he wasn't interested anymore, and of course, my insecurity shot straight up and I flipped out. That's basically one of our last fights ever, I suppose. We saw each other one more time but we basically said little to each other. In my effort to rectify us, I called him to fulfill our earlier plans to go to the beach and for me to be the chauffeur of our trip. That drive was terrible and Robert had been critical, bossy, and condescending about my driving. Right before arriving at the beach, we switched seats and he drove home with us in complete silence for about 40 minutes. We said nothing to each other and that was that. We were over.
Sigh. Insecurity. MY insecurity. Was that one of the reasons we broke up? Has that baggage been with me for so long that I didn't even realize its pervasiveness in my first relationship? This question is like asking which came first: the chicken or the egg? Did my insecurity come into full force because he seemed so different and apathetic to me and our relationship? Or was my insecurity always there and exploded into full force and made him feel like he was too exhausted by me?
Whatever the reason is, I can now feel the frustration, anger, confusion, and sadness that I felt 7 years ago. I remember those feelings now, and I can acknowledge now that Robert changed and was different from the person who wrote me those beautiful love letters. I was probably different too, although I think I've always been the same. Perhaps Robert realized something about me that I am only slowly starting to realize. Because the honest truth is that I did not get it. Ever. I did not understand what Robert was saying and I needed more and different explanations to help me know what was happening to him, to us, to me. As exasperated as he was to explain things to me, I know that this is me and my limitations as a person. If I don't understand something, then I need to keep asking until I get it. I need to hear it explained several times in several different ways, and I need patience, empathy, respect, and some tolerance for my inability to comprehend what feels so emotionally intense and overwhelming. I suppose no amount of love letters can erase the fact that we did grow apart from one another, that we fought like cats and dogs and were unable to understand each other, and that we did eventually break up.
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