Unmet hopes

After leaving my hometown this week and returning to my adult world, I went to therapy.
I talked cried about this relationship haunting me and I tried to make sense of what was happening to me internally.

As I recounted the entry I wrote when Robert and I broke up, I realized that I never really let-him-go because I always expected he would come back one day to explain everything to me. To know the inner workings of my mind and heart, it's important to be honest about my expectations about Robert and me.  My fantasy/expectation had always been the following possible scenarios:

1) Robert finds me one day and comes to me to apologize.  He wants to say sorry for how things ended, and he is also incredibly regretful that we even broke up.  He offers a really good explanation that has to do with his incredulous love for me and wanting to protect me from whatever it is he couldn't tell me about before. For example, maybe he had cancer but he didn't want  to know because he knew I would have dropped everything to be with him and take care of him.  Because he didn't want me to give up my plans, he had to break up with me in a cold-hearted manner and disappear until he got better.  He has now realized that it was not the right thing to do and is so sorry to have done that to me.  Over the years, he has also matured and grown in a lot of ways. He realizes that life is unbearable without me and wishes we could try again.

2) I am living my life and having a good time when I unintentionally run-into Robert.  Hmm.  I suppose what happens subsequently is an exact copy-paste scenario from the scene above.  He apologizes. He is regretful.  He still loves me. He still wants me back. But what's different is that he's too embarrassed to have shown-up at my door to apologize.  Still, he has always wished for another chance with me but has been too shy/embarrassed to act on this impulse.  Nevertheless, he wishes for a reconciliation and is sorry for our breakup.

3) Like scenario 2, Robert and I run-into each other, perhaps at a large social event with a bunch of our mutual friends.  Because we're in such a large crowd, we are cordial to each other and I am not overtly emotional or shocked.  I play-it-off very well and appear cool, calm, collected.  We hang out as a group and as the group dwindles, I continue to remain very rational and level-headed.  I say that it's good to see him, that I hope he's doing well, and I ask about him and his family.  I say nothing about the past so that I can look like I don't care that much.  I press for no details and I am able to seem casual and light-hearted.  He realizes how cool I am and is surprised.  He sees how little pressure I place on him and is reminded of his love for me. If he wasn't already in love with me then, he will fall back in love with me and want to be together again!

Hmm.  Now that it's written out, these scenarios sound kind of embarrassing.  They all have the same ending. They're just different versions of how he and I would act prior to reconciling. In my heart of hearts, I have always waited for Robert to show-up one day and to offer me some sort of release and closure. Umm... And also an opportunity to be together again.  I have been so sure that it would happen one day.  I have been so sure that I have been in waiting-mode for the past 7 years, just passively awaiting the day he comes.  All because I have been so sure that he will inevitably come.

But he hasn't come.  And I'm just now starting to realize that he may never come.  When I started dating a few years ago, I did it to spite Robert in my head.  I did it so that I can tell him (in my head) that I am capable of dating other people, and to threaten that I can be with someone else if he doesn't show up soon.  I didn't want to be with anyone else, much less even go on a date with somebody that wasn't him. But I did it so that I wouldn't always be in Robert's shadow.  I did it so that I could also tell myself that I can make comparisons because I don't know anything else beyond him.

Heck, the only reason I even had sex with someone else was so that I can say "Ha! Look! Robert isn't the only person I've been with now! I am capable of doing this with someone else!  Also, with someone else in the picture, my feelings for Robert will surely lessen so that it isn't so intense anymore!"

My approach completely back-fired though because I then started dating non-stop until.... now.  And now, I am dealing with multiple griefs because in truth, I never let Robert go. And because every relationship has been about him in some way, shape, or form.

How unhealthy that is.

Stuck

I am struggling with journaling because I want to numb-out altogether.

I am struggling with the complex emotions that I have, and I am not very self-compassionate about my regressing so far behind that I am now obsessed with the ending of my first relationship.

Grief, I have something to say to you: I hate you.

I knew quite rationally that when grieving over one loss, it is normal to think of all of the previous losses and to have to go through them once again in some way.  What I did not expect was this intensity or anxiety.  What I did not expect was to feel again what I felt 7 years ago and to be in the same exact friggin place again.

Now that I've left my childhood home and am back in my apartment in another city/state/region of the country, I can feel safe again, and distanced from the possibilities of "running into him" or being constantly flooded by memories of him.  Now that I am away, I am able to feel PISSED.  Not necessarily at him, but at myself.

I am livid with ME.

Why am I still here 7 years later?  Why am I in the exact same position that I was in when he broke up with me years ago?  Has nothing changed?  Did I not do any of the mourning or grieving then?  Is it humanly possible to feel the same way you did 7 years ago, the same feelings, the same intensity, the overwhelming disbelief, and the same shock at how things unfolded?  How could it be that I am just as confused and stuck now as I was before?  Where has my emotional growth been all this time?  Have I just been emotionally stunted!?  What has happened or not happened so that I am the exact same person all over again?

People tell me that it's good we broke up.  A blessing in disguise.  They remind me of my growth over the years.  They tell me to think of my accomplishments since the break-up.  They highlight my life experiences over this time period and tell me that it could have never worked out.  If Robert and I were together, I could have never made it this far.  With each of these comments, I am frustrated because I disagree.  I disagree.  I disagree.

I have not changed.  Just as my feelings are the same now, I have not changed now, nor do I expect to change in the next 10, 20, 30, 50 years.  The core of who I am is the exact same, or at least, very similar. I have the same values as before, the same reflex to situations, and my feelings, obviously are still one and the same. I am perhaps less naiive now and more open-minded.  I will still love in the same way though: with fervor, with passion, with undying loyalty and commitment (see how that's bitten me in the butt numerous times but I can't stop it because I can't help but be myself?). I will still be hurt when someone breaks up with me.  I will still engage in self-blame when things happen.  I will try very hard not to, but my instincts will be the same.  My coping mechanism will change if I practice hard enough.  Still, for the most part, I think I am the same.  I don't think I will ever change that much.

As far as my growth and accomplishments go, I also think that I would have pursued the same path I'm on regardless of whether Robert and I are together.  I went to college and did long-distance, didn't I?  Yes, it's true that I contemplated transferring near him so we can be close together.  But I only contemplated it, I wasn't really going to do it, was I?  And I imagine slash hope that in my career decisions, Robert would have supported me and made me an even better person because that's what partners do for each other, no?

My other delusion thoughts are that I can be a positive influence for Robert as well.  Had he leaned on me during tough times, maybe I could have helped him.  Maybe I could have supported him, assisted him, been a partner to him in all the ways he needed, and shouldered the responsibilities for him so that he can also pursue his dreams and later be healthy and happy.

I have all these "what if's" in my head and they are entail happy endings.  "What if _____? Then Robert and I would be together."  Then I would have never had to meet/date all the assholes I've been with and I would continue to be the pure, happy, blissful, naiive-but-optimistic girl that I used to be.

Immersed in the past

My good friend Nan is in town this week and she and I have known each other since the 8th grade.

We had breakfast together this week and she asked me about B. Toward the end of that relationship, we had emailed back and forth discussing heartbreak and cheating boyfriends, and she wanted to check-in on how I was doing since the breakup. Over pancakes and sausage and hot steaming coffee, she asked me a series of questions having to do with my feelings since I left him and when I looked up, I stared at her blankly and thought to myself, "who?"

Is it possible that being at home, in this time capsule, I actually forgot about all of the heartbreak inflicted by B.? Have I regressed so much in my mental state of being in high school/college, that B. simply does not exist because he doesn't come into my life several years later?

Could it be that by focusing on my first love, I have forgotten about any and all subsequent relationships that broke my heart?

On the one hand, that is awesome! Talk about the resiliency of the human heart!

On the other hand, am I broken? Is my heart so wounded that I no longer have the capacity to deal with any pain after the first heartbreak? Am I so damaged from that first relationship that I am now stunted in my recovery? Am I unable to process anything or anyone else because I'm so immersed in my own history and can't get out of the past? Help.

Day 7 Back Home

As I continue to embrace the good and bad about my first romantic relationship, I decide to re-visit our most recent correspondence via email.  A few years ago, I impulsively called Robert out-of-the-blue and said I needed to know why. We had already been broken up for 4 years but I had been so emotionally unavailable that I knew I had to know why before I could move forward.

In that conversation, he told me a bunch of things that were hectic and dramatic in his life. And in turn, I immediately moved toward sympathy and empathy. I wanted to ask him, "SO? WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH US?"  But I didn't because I thought about the challenges he's endured on his own and how exhausted he must be.  I asked how he was doing then and he said that he's somewhat depressed and rarely making it out of the house, even.  He showed me his super ubtanned arm and said, Look! I'm never even in the sun.

Naturally, I offered to take a walk with him so we can get some Vitamin D in his system.  He consented to the idea, but I knew deep down, he only said yes to placate me.  He said he'd call me-- which he never did-- and of course, I was broken-hearted. It took another several weeks, tons of drafts, and a whole boatload of courage to write him a very long and emotional email about feeling abandoned (ah, isn't that the essence of our relationship?).  And his response? "Sorry, I forgot. I also didn't have your phone number."

I was so disappointed and dejected by his email.  But that was when we also began sending emails.  A few sentences here and there, a paragraph every now and then.  But our email correspondance was always initiated by me.  And he was always the one passively responding to questions.  So, in time, I stopped writing.  And of course, so did he.

As I read through Robert's emails which are quite superficial in content and length, I happen upon my email folder filled with all of the emails that B. used to send me.  B. used to write me super romantic emails as well as lust-filled emails that made me feel utterly desired and precious. His intentions were dramatic, emotional, sexy, and intense. Such a stark contrast to Robert's!  Looking back at B.'s emails, however, I feel sick, though.  I don't feel nostalgic or reminiscent. I'm not even sad that I don't get emails like that anymore.  I feel, actually... grossed out.  Disturbed, even!  Whereas his words conveyed passion, they were just words. Fake words. Fake Words that he spewed to any woman, me being just one of the many.

In retrospect, I realize that I always wished Robert cared more for me.  I wished he was hot for me. Red-hot.  I always felt like Robert was a lukewarm person.  He was neither hot nor cold, he just was.  You could not get anything out of him that was extreme or even dramatic.  Do you know what his motto was under our senior pictures? "Whatever happens, happens."  How's that for a passive guy?

Fighting with Robert was also like fighting with a brick wall. He never said much, and his expressions gave away nothing.  I remember crying during our fights, and Robert always had no reaction other than looking down. At one point in time, I had yelled at him and said "I'm crying! How can you have no reaction whatsoever?"  With Robert, I always craved more passion, intensity, excitement, and also, lust. I wished Robert would just... want me.  In contrast, B. gave me all of that and more.  He gave me romance (at first), he set the scenes as though they were from movies, and he was incredibly hot but also incredibly cold too. Being with B. was like riding an emotional roller coaster all the time.  He was very moody, very much an alcoholic, very much a womanizer, very much a disordered eater.  In short, B. went to extremes in every way possible, sometimes being very depressed and other times appearing manic and unable to settle down.

Perhaps this is where I can appreciate B. for his existence in my life.  I'm not fully there yet, being able to look at him as a meaningful experience yet. But I guess he gave me what I always craved.  He gave it to me in excess so I now know that it's not enough.  Perhaps I got it in excess to know that white-hot passion isn't always the true indicator of how someone feels for you.  Comparing Robert and B. side-by-side makes me feel like I under-appreciated all of the good things Robert gave me.  Did I overlook his feelings for me in his subtlety?  Did I feel "less loved" because he didn't say all the right things, do all the right things?  I guess these questions are all moot considering he's the one that left, not me.