History

For the past few days I've been a good girl. I've hung out with the fam and my friends, I went skiing for the first time in eight years and had a blast, filmed a short movie for my dear Wesley, had a girls' night and got another facial. I've tried hard to not be mopey and have a good time and successfully, I have. So. I'm going to allow myself this here one last bitter post where I'm going to be as honest as all heck with what's left of my anger, hate and love for this man. And after this, no more.

The last year and a quarter of my life have been, oh how you say, bad. Well, that's unfair to all of 2005 because it wasn't all bad all the time (the last quarter of 2004 was majorly suckass and there's no contesting that). In January I won an award and a scholarship and got my learn on enough to pull my GPA back up high where I like it. In February I was on stage again and won the Fringe Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In March I got a fantastic new job and went to Ottawa and Quebec City. In April I went back on stage for the Vagina Monologues and got offered a part in a movie. May: Worked in Ottawa and Quebec City, got a part in a play. June: Saw the Pompeii exhibit, met up with Greg and hung around Ottawa and QC some more. July: I had the best job I've had in a while, went to Cali and met a great boy named Adam. August: I picked up the hobby of jumping out of planes, re-fell in love with Toronto, and saw the Backstreet Boys in concert. In September I...hrm. October was- ...November. Huh. December?

Okay, so the last four months of 2005 have been particularly not so hot and I've apparently shown that I'm really good at chronicling the depressive crap that's been going on in my life in a somewhat lighthearted fashion. Somewhat. I'm hoping it's all just a phase that will pass, much like a kidney stone. And the metaphor is so very complete because passing one of those suckers is painful and oh goodness, has the majority of this last year and a bit been damn painful or what. For what will hopefully be the last time, here's the background:

So seven years ago I met a guy on a bus and somehow ended up falling in love with him. After a number of years and other guys, I realized that I wanted to marry him, have his children, grow old with him and die in each others' arms. We finally get together, but then I somehow ended up cheating on him and not only did I hide it from him, I also lied about it. And man, did it ever throw things into a tizzy when he found out by reading through my MSN conversation history. And sure, so I thought that if I nevereverEVER did it again and stayed with him then he'd see that I chose him and us and I wanted the relationship to work and really, it was nothing but a fuck up. Apparently he didn't see things the same way at all. We went through a lot of shit last fall/winter: numerous breakups and getbacktogethers for numerous reasons, an engagement that lasted a record eleven days, a suicide attempt, counselling, hatred, jealousy problems and a bunch of other depressing crap that you can piece together via the archives because I really don't want to go through all of it again, not even textually. Our final breakup came in late January of 05 and we stopped talking cold turkey mid-February. Going to the same school and living down the street from him was (and is still) not cool. I looked forward to the summer, only to find him in Orange County at the same conference as I and in September we ended up in the same (year long) class. So it turns out that life doesn't always work the way you want it to. Who knew.

In an angry email a friend of his wrote to me last winter, she told me to get over it; we broke up and he couldn't trust me. Big deal, suck it up, get over it. It's been about a year and our interactions involve pretending like the other person isn't there. Yeah, it seems like it makes lots of sense to get over it, all things considered. So where's the problem? Here and here, wherever my soul lies. A year later and though I'm not an emotional wreck like I was last winter, really deep down I'm still just a wee bit depressed over it. I deified him to the point where he was all good and I was all bad. At the height of my emotional and mental breakage, I started to pray and before anything else, I prayed for his soul to be taken care of first. My faith rested on our relationship and when that fell apart, I wasn't quite sure what else there was to believe in. I guess after trusting in someone and something for so long, it kind of sticks around in your being. He and us gave me a real reason to believe in fate. But, my strange faith aside, I honestly felt quite fine during the summer and going into the school year; I'm certain that having him in my class this fall has made things infinitely worse.

And it's not like I didn't try to get over it. I tried not to think about it as much as I could. I remember sitting on a bus during late spring and saying NO in my head whenever a memory of him popped into my head. Just like that and I moved onto another stream of thought, it was so easy. I stopped reading his blog nearly cold turkey and kept it up for a long time. I fell off the wagon a couple of times, but I got back on and I've stayed on for a hella long time. To tell you the childish truth, if you've ever mentioned his name on your blog, I mostly likely skipped reading the rest of the post and stayed away for a while. I've actually stopped reading a few blogs all together because they mentioned him too much. Seriously? In the angry email from his friend last winter, she told me that reading my blog made her want to bang her head against the wall every time. I just wrinkled my brow and wondered, Why don't you just stop reading it? Reading about him makes me want to rip my own heart out in an attempt to not feel anything, so naturally, I'm going to stay away from things that make me feel that way.

And you know, when I found out that we were going to be in the same class, I decided to take a pretty big step. It had got to the point where I thought that enough time had passed and that we were ready to be adults about the whole situation. So I called him to talk about his mum and to say, I'm going to make an effort to be your friend. I want to try to make things better. I don't want to pretend like we don't exist to each other anymore. After all, I missed him. Not just as a loving boyfriend, but simply as a friend, as a person I could talk to and share with. He said No. And in response, I could do nothing but file away the email, close my eyes and exhale a deep, resigned sigh. My friend Nikhil once wrote to me: try not to completely throw away what I once knew to be a very nice friendship. I'm sorry my dear Nikhil, I tried, but I'm afraid that the friendship has already been thrown away.

***
Interlude:
He managed to fundraise his way to Antarctica this winter and wow, was that a sobering moment when I found out (by reading a post from a friend's blog). Oh sure I was sad because in high school that was our thing, maybe he would even say the thing that brought us closer together, and now he's totally doing it alone. I'm feeling a combination of happiness for him because he's wanted it for six years and a muted bitterness because though it would have been nice to be told and to receive a postcard like every other single person he knows, I wasn't and I won't. And no, I'm not going to ask for one because I got the hint pretty clearly when he returned the cheque that I wrote to him to help with the fundraising. All I wanted to do was freaking help goddammit. But apparently my involvement in the project hindered his peace of mind and if trying to help by donating money did that, then I'm not going to be stupidly selfish and ask for a stupid postcard.
***

Really, why even bother trying to be his friend when rejection is coming from every angle? He doesn't want my donation, my good intentions and especially not my friendship. So I think about him still. So I still want to share my highs and lows. So I think about him every time I celebrate something. So I miss his family. So I still get teary when I think about not being there to see his little sister and cousins grow up. So I miss him. So what. Smack smack smack it into your head dear girl. He doesn't want you around.

And you know what? I'm sick and tired of feeling nervous around people we both know, I'm sick of crying I'm tired of feeling hollow, I'm sick and tired of taking the blame. I'm sick and tired of being seen as the person who fucked up and ruined everything because, though I will never deny fucking up way beyond what I understood to be hugely and immensely, I know didn't ruin everything on my own. It takes two to make a relationship and it takes two to break one. I wanted to make things work, I wanted to talk about it, I wanted counselling for the both of us. Surprise, sur-freaking-prise, I wanted to be with him. I was open with what I felt in terms of my jealousy and I wanted compromise. By the end of the relationship, instead of getting compromise, I felt that I was being compromised. I felt I was a bad person who didn't have any morals. I felt horribly and unfairly misunderstood. I thought I was stupid for being hurt when my boyfriend had dinner three nights a week with the same girl. When I think about it, he invaded my privacy and breached the same principles of trust by reading my MSN history, my journals, email and unposted blog entries without asking me and yes, there was lying from his end too. Really, I don't think we're all that different. Except that I somehow, forgave him for everything he did and returned my trust to him again and again. Why? Stupid answer.

The good thing about writing sap-crap posts about him over and over is that I've made a bunch of new net friends because they can hear themselves in what I'm saying - I'm glad about that. Sometimes, all anyone needs is to know that they're not alone in what they're feeling. To the lot of you I say, You're still not alone and never will be. Maybe you won't be able to read about those feelings here anymore, but I still and will always understand. I'm just taking another step to help me in the healing process because it's been dragged on for much too long. This hardly means that I'll stop writing about sappy stuff like boys, love and how I still want a relationship; and yes, I admit to thinking that I'll vaguely mention him in a post every now and then simply because he was a part of my life for so long. What I'm saying is that I will stop devoting whole posts to him, even whole paragraphs. It's not healthy and it's not helping. It's almost a shame because I've often felt that the sap-crap I write about him is some of my best stuff.

Do what you need to do. He used to say that a lot and now people have been saying it to me. They're right. I need to get a move on because being stuck in this goddamn slump is not getting me anywhere other than into a chair in a counsellor's office. I can tell you that it's still going to suck monkey balls to see him twice a week in class and if it wasn't a course I had been looking forward to taking for a year and a half, I would have dropped it. So the mopey feelings might not go away for a bit longer, but I'm not going to prolong their stay by writing about it all the time. I'm going back to where I was a while ago, when I would actively say NO to thoughts about him and move my mind to other things.

I'm leaving 2005 with all this shit in the past, where it belongs. (I really wish I had been able to finish this post in time so that I could have posted it while 2005 was still around. Don't even start with me on the symbolism of that one. 2006 is still full of newness and fresh opportunities for a sap-free life.) I'm sick and tired of carrying it around with me everyday because it makes me so weary and really, I don't want to be depressed and miserable over an ex-boyfriend who pretends like he doesn't even know me. I shouldn't need to have a good cry every now and then, and it's not like this pity party is getting me anywhere. I'm being super unattractive when I mope and cry and I'm totally scaring off other people because they now see me as an emotional headcase. Seriously, I think I need to smack it into my brain that continually saying that I'm still sorrysorrySORRY and that I still love him isn't going to bring him back to me. At this point, I don't know if anything ever will. I don't even know if I want him back right now.

Okay, so there we go. I'm done talking about this and you know all you need to know. If you feel that I'm telling this all wrong and want to berate me for it, to you I say this: I will only ever tell one half of the story because I only ever have one half to tell - My Half. This is what I knowthinkandfeel, it's not about what anyone else knowsthinksorfeels, this here is my half.

I don't want to end this entirely melodramatic and bitter because although this post is evidence to the contrary, that's not the kind of person I am. If you read any of these posts written after we split, you'll see that I've really got a soft spot for him on the inside (the spot that, when triggered, makes me cry for days). Part of me is sad and part of me is amazed at how quickly and precisely he managed to cut me out of his life. I never wanted and still don't want to do that to him because despite all the awful things he did to me and how me made me feel, I still like him. Regardless, I'm pretty sure he doesn't feel the same way about me so I need to stop wondering if he'll ever want to be my friend ever again. As it stands, that seems unlikely. Still, I want it to be known and accepted that J will forever be a very important part of my past, not just because he was around for so long, but because who I am today has been largely influenced by him. I admired and respected him long before I fell in love with him. And no matter how I try, or how little he feels those things for me, I don't think I'll ever stop admiring or respecting him. And truthfully, at this point, I wonder whether my love for him will ever really fade away.

In my head, in my heart, in my soul, pieces of who you were will always remain. I lost you five different ways last winter: as a boyfriend, as a fiance, as a person who wanted to live, as a friend and finally, as someone that I knew - I've hung on tightly to whatever bits I have left. Perhaps too tightly. It's a shame that I don't know who you are anymore, but like they say, it's probably for the best. A year ago, a million tears ago, we broke each others' hearts...my capacity to love amazes me, my capacity to hurt scares me. I loved you in a million ways and now I miss you in a million more. I've written so much here already and yet I feel like there is still so much more left to say, but I have no way of saying it.

It's all the same anyway - I love(d) you. I miss you. Remember us as we were.

To 2005, to Jason, Goodbye.
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