The Problem of "IF"

If only . . . If only I could eliminate the “if only.” The pain won’t release. The doubts won’t resolve. The comfort won’t arrive. I keep thinking, “if only he would validate the truth I know . . . if only he would show me the deep feeling he still possesses for me . . . if only he would demonstrate his regret at having made the wrong choice.” My heart is tortured with dreams of the impossible. Can I possibly cry enough to purge this agony? Added to this grief is the knowledge that I grieve alone. He does not share my remorse. How this is possible, I cannot tell. His heart spoke to me. His dilemma was plain before my eyes, but now he refuses to acknowledge all that I know to be true. I didn’t imagine the emotion he felt for me, but he was faced with a choice. And when he was torn between his feelings for me and his selfish desires, he chose to deny his feelings. This is the inconsolable source of my grief. It was no small slight. Believing myself to have value beyond his desires, I allowed myself to feel secure. I trusted him to protect the bond I knew us both to cherish. Afterward, I believed the loss of that bond would spiral him into unbearable regret. His grief would contaminate his new relationship. His feeling for me would haunt him with unanswered questions as to what was truly lost. I am a romantic. I may be dramatic. Perhaps it’s unreasonable to dream of such things, but this is how it should have been . . . if only.

When What Was is Undone

Which loss is more painful? The loss of something cherished and true, or the loss of something equally cherished but found to be untrue. While in both circumstances you grieve the loss of hope in the future, when it is found to be untrue, you also grieve the loss of belief in the past. Do you remember the moment you found that Santa Claus was a myth? Did it not shake the foundations of your childhood? Wasn't it the beginning of the end? All of those magical years of believing in pixie dust and enchanted forests came to a screeching halt. As adults, we think we've outgrown such silly myths, but then we fall in love with people who don't love us back. We can't escape the fairy tales, no matter how old we get.

I had a conversation with the SoHB (Source of HeartBreak) yesterday. Every conversation brings new conviction that I must release him from my life entirely. It would serve me best if I never saw him again. But time passes, and I do see him. We have the same circle of friends, so it is somewhat inevitable, but I must confess to occasionally manipulating circumstance. I often see him online. I want him to initiate a chat so I can rebuff him with cold politeness. If he doesn't, I do. I can't seem to help myself. If I invite friends to go out, I include him in the invitation. My justification is that our friends need not feel uncomfortable or that they must choose between us. The truth is that I still want something from him, and every conversation proves to me his unwillingness to give it. Of course, I don't ask for it outright, but I am reaching, . . . clawing for it in every precious moment when he's near.

I've become a nag. I've become a horrible shrew who can do nothing but scold and blame. I asked him yesterday why he didn't understand my feelings of resentment. I asked why I couldn't make him understand. He participated in the conversation. He didn't simply brush aside what I have to say as insignificant, but said that he doesn't agree with my account of events. I get no apology, except to say that he's sorry I was hurt. I get no expression of significant remorse. He said he wants us to remain close friends, but that seems to mean forgetting all about this problem and getting back to normal. In the end of these conversations, it will often appear that we've made some progress. This time he said he would seriously think about what asked of him. I told him that making ammends with someone you've hurt entails an expression of regret along with marked attempts to show that person how greatly they are valued. I said that an inequality of commitment to each of these factors isn't nearly as important as making certain both are addressed. Since he has expressed an acceptance of some culpability in handling things badly (He will not, however, admit to "betraying" me), I asked him to think about what I should do if the situation were reversed and he were in my shoes. He agreed and seemed to approach the idea with some enthusiasm. I left the conversation feeling more optomistic about our future, but it was short-lived.

With a little distance from it I realized that what I asked of him will not satisfy me. I must confess to wanting more than breadcrumbs. Every time he has said he wants us to remain close friends, I feel trivialized . . . reduced to being a sidelight in his life when I had been a main player. I don't want to be a friend. I want to be the object of his affection. I want to be the one he regrets taking for granted, . . .the one he longs for now that his mistakes have made me unreachable. I want him to admit that his feelings for me were very intense, but he ignored them. I guess that is the pivotal point for me. He now says that he had given up on us and accepted that we would be nothing more than friends. Things he said through drunken hazes and the way he looked at me that week before the sky fell in told me differently. I want him to want me back, not as a friend, but as the true love he regrets losing. In other words, I want the impossible, even if it's true. Even if he still harbors deep romantic feelings for me, he has decided to pursue a relationship with her. I am out of the game, and there is no use in my hanging around.

What is the harsher loss? All I know is that my sorrow is filled with the loss of not only things I hoped to come, but my value to someone I cherished, which I knew to be significant, being rendered insignificant. How does one reconcile that loss?

In the Thick of Things

For a moment, I forgot my own age. I actually had to stop and think. How can I be 32? How is it possible I've been here 32 years? I don't remember 32 years worth of stuff . . . do I? I feel like I'm still in my twenties. Many of my friends are in their twenties. I was actually told by someone a couple of weeks ago that he thought I was the same age as my 22-year-old nephew. It had to have been the lighting. Nonetheless, it added a thrill to my night.

My life is going through a turnstile. So many painful changes have swept over me it can't help but be funny. I blame it all on a prayer. I felt that my life had become stagnant in the familiar, and I was drowning in the quagmire of security. I prayed, recklessly, for the removal of all obstacles that were stunting my progress to happiness and fulfillment. I named people, institutions, lifestyle choices that I suspected to be in my way and asked God to deal with all things as He saw fit. I knew it was dangerous. I knew an answer to this prayer would, in all likelihood, cause immeasurable grief. As they say, you get what you pay for.

Almost immediately I noticed little inconveniences popping up. My life usually runs very smoothly, but I suddenly found myself in circumstances that tried my ability to self-defend. Then the roof fell in. In short (and in this order), the love of my life tells me he's involved with someone, a little more than a week ago I was fired, and this weekend the guy I was seeing (who had been a respite from my heartbreak) dumps me. Those are the major whammies on my mind right now, but there's more. A little hurricane called Ivan knocked a limb into the eve of my house causing damage that still needs repairing. I've been driving my mother's car for over a month now because mine "stopped working." The dealership replaced a defective part that was under warranty (thank God!), but refuses to correct all the problems that have mysteriously begun since they worked on it. (They claim it came in that way.) Now I get to have a mechanic fix the car, paid for out of my currently paycheck-less savings, and then fight the dealership to cover the cost.

I feel like a whiner, and I hate whiners. I know how fortunate I am. My roof damage from Ivan is superficial. There was no structural or internal damage to my home. So many were not so blessed. And I'm fortunate to have a car to see me through this trouble with my own car. I could have found myself without any transportation. Even in my heartbreak, I know myself to be blessed. It's as though God interceded where I didn't have the strength to stop. The man is an alcoholic, an atheist, and incapable of giving himself to a full and mature relationship . . . wholly unsuited for me . . . but I was bonded to him so tightly and only falling deeper. If I couldn't let him go, then I wouldn't be free to meet the person who will be right for me. The same is true of the guy who recently dumped me. I knew it wouldn't work out, but it distracted me from the pain of the first guy. Still, I knew staying involved with him would keep me unavailable. It was just too hard to let go.

So, I'm thirty-two. I can only shake my head in disbelief. I guess it's no wonder I'm feeling this way. Maybe the age thing is a bigger element than I ever credited. I find myself longing for my husband as though he were someone who is hiding somewhere in my current life. I don't think any woman anticipates her wedding to be delayed beyond thirty. It's a despicable thought to every young woman. I was surprisingly fine with enjoying my single-ness when that pivotal birthday arrived. There are too many unhappily married thirty-somethings who find themselves wondering why they needed to rush as twenty-somethings. Even now I don't have panicked thoughts about my biological clock or dying alone. I just find myself being more certain than ever of the type of relationship I need, feeling ready to build it, and being completely frustrated over the lack of prospects. Random thoughts will strike me that if my husband were with me in certain situations (as in the things that dissolved both ill-fated relationships), the situations wouldn't exist at all. And at other times, I wonder over how nice it would be to have someone to confer with, lean on, or simply vent to. I might even have no need for a blog.