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?