The Worst Part

There have been three times in my life so far that I’d dealt with a disabling amount of pain.

The first was at the age of 16.

The second was between the ages of 23 and 24.

The third is right now.

Within the last year and a half, I have lost several people — people who I was extremely close to, and love/d very much. Unfortunately, this is nothing new to me; I’ve lost people before, whether it be through death or having been stabbed in the back or betrayed…I’m sure it’s something all of us experience at least once. And it hurts.

It always hurts.

A decade or so ago, as I’d mentioned in my post ‘Quiet Because You Care,’ I struggled with codependence issues. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, the codependence made the cut of loss feel even more pronounced than it already would’ve been on its own, and let me tell you, it wasn’t fun.

Even though I’d made the time to heal from my ex-cray-cray, and then entered a healthier dynamic over a year afterwards, I never wanted to allow codependent behaviors to enter the relationships (ANY kind of relationship) I may’ve had in the future; I still had self-consciousness, with a sprinkle of self-loathing, and I wanted to decimate it.

So, a few years ago, I locked myself up at a monastery: The only other people there were some nuns and a priest. My phone had practically no reception, there was no cable…all I had to entertain myself was my yoga mat, my violin, and my computer (with no internet).

Before I left, I drew five runes after asking the question: What do I need to do to love myself?

I wrote them down, then took a day to meditate on each one.

When I came back, everything changed for me.

It didn’t happen right away, but I did learn to love myself.

‘Now that I have love for myself, I’ll never hurt like I have again,’ I’d thought, oh-so-haughtily. ‘It’ll sting a bit, but after the initial shock, I’ll just move forward and do what I need to do. Instead of whining and complaining, I’ll just pluck the unhealthy people from my circle, and everything’ll be ok: No more tears!’

Haha. I’m funny, aren’t I?

I honestly believed that everything from then on out would be easy, in terms of emotional pain, and in October…I found out that I was wrong.

I knew my love for nine years, and dated him for around four. I’d say that he was my best friend in addition to the love of my life, but that’d be a lie; he was more than that. He was my ride or die.

The biggest problem that we had was the distance: I’m in Michigan…and he’s in England.

After spending a grand total of six months in person together over the course of the time we’d known one another, we both felt confident in making the decision of trying to get him over here on a visa, but after months and months of procrastination, he did exactly what I thought he’d do: He freaked out and put the brakes on.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know it was coming. When he left here after being around for three months last winter, he was as confident as he ever was…he even left a whole bunch of his stuff behind, proclaiming it was no big deal because it was just ‘less stuff to pack.’ He assured me that he’d be back.

But for some reason, the very moment he entered his house back in England…something changed. And I know it was that moment, because I was on the phone with him. He was depersonalizing, which we both chalked up to him having anxiety from the extreme change between here and there…it’d happened before. But this time, it wasn’t going away.

I’ll spare you the details, but over the next eight and a half months, we’d gone back and forth about what was causing it. He swore it wasn’t anything to do with me, but with having to move across the world and be somewhere other than his small, seaside town.

I gave him an ultimatum: You come here by January, or I need to move on.

I wasn’t trying to be a bitch, I swear. I’m 33, and simply couldn’t bear having a relationship with my phone anymore. The intermittent physical affection left me in a constant state of starvation…I’d say ‘goodbye’ to him, not knowing if or when I’d ever see him again, and it was usually a year before I would — one time, it was two years. And the fact that he has ALWAYS been terrible about picking up the phone only made things worse.

I loved him, but I wasn’t happy, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it any longer than I already had. Without getting into detail, I’d made many…many…MANY accommodations and sacrifices for him, and I felt that him asking me to make even more, without compunction, was unacceptable. I just couldn’t do it.

Then…the day finally came when he told me he wasn’t coming.

And it broke my heart.

I’d tell people the story: I’d tell them about how he said it wasn’t that he didn’t love me, but because he wouldn’t move. You should see and hear the reactions people’ve had when I told them that. It’s like they’re saying, ‘Sure, sweetheart…you just keep on telling yourself that.’

Trust me, I’ve had the same suspicions, myself…I really did. And I still do.

I wanted him to visit me — to just…make SURE he was making the right decision. Whenever he’d been here, he’d loved it, and we’d gotten along. He kept saying that he’d try, but it was empty words. He said he wanted to stay in contact with me, that he still loved me and wanted to work on himself and come back to me: I thought he was bad at initiating contact before, but now, there is nothing but silence.

Not sure if anybody reading this has ever gone from talking around five times a week or so with somebody for as long as I have to absolutely nothing, but to say it’s a cutting, gut-wrenching, lonely pain to the likes of which I’ve never experienced before would be a gross understatement. It’s like what I’d imagine losing a body part would feel like.

I did initiate contact a few times, and was ignored for days…then weeks. He contacted me back, saying all of the usual things: I love you, I’m hurting, I’m trying to get over this fear of leaving, I’ll talk to you more, I’ll try to visit.

It’s been almost a month since that conversation, and he hasn’t said a word to me.

I really needed that visit. I really needed those text messages or phone calls or anything else. Not because there’s a gaping hole in my soul, or that addictive-love feeling…it’s none of that. It’s because after all that has happened…after everything we’ve been through…after the long, agonizing waiting and waiting and waiting for him to DO something — ANYTHING — and getting the kiss-off that I received, in return, then — after ALL of that — having him say he still loves me…that he wanted to be with me…I just wanted to have some sort of tangible evidence that he meant what he said.

Something.

ANYTHING.

Because when you try your best, and you give, and you trust, and you stay loyal, and you’re patient, and you sustain the necessary pain and loneliness of loving somebody far away, and build something with somebody…you want to know, whether or not there’s a future, that all of that effort was WORTH that piece of yourself.

One night, I was washing dishes, and something hit me:

Maybe, I should tell my agoraphobia to go fuck itself and just hop on a plane to England, show up at his door, and say ‘I love you. I want to make this work. Fuck your anxiety and fuck mine, too; we’ve endured worse obstacles than this…we can do this.’

And that was the moment that I realized that I HAD been doing that…I’ve been doing that the entire course of our romantic relationship.

It was his turn to make that grand gesture — to show ME that devotion when there was more than the minimal effort required.

And he simply was choosing not to.

I honestly believe that that was the bigger reason why I couldn’t go on the way it was: I heard his words, but I didn’t see them. And he talked a large game.

The pain comes out in anger…it always has with me. I said things that I regret; I said things that I’m not sure I even meant, and if I did mean them, I shouldn’t’ve said them. But the situation eats away at me. His mother (who, funny enough, the first time we met told me to ‘snuff it,’ which is English slang for ‘go kill yourself’ or ‘die!’) and I’d built a lovely relationship with each other; she sent me a Christmas card, which I received Monday night, and I cried for hours. It was the absolute sweetest thing she could’ve done, and it hurt so much to not be able to call him and (or her) and say so.

An entire part of my life is just…gone. Gone. And so many people don’t realize it. They try to get me to go on dates, or tell me to forget about him, and it hasn’t even been two months yet. When I came into my mom’s Thanksgiving dinner party, I was holding back tears with everything I had, begging everything holy that nobody’d ask me where he was. The person who I shared everything with has all but disappeared. A part of me still hopes that he’ll just show up at my door. Isn’t that stupid? It’s laughable. A silly kind of hurt. A ‘you dumb bitch’ type of thing.

And the worst part of it all is that I still love him.

After I learned what I did at the monastery, I’ve become a fortified individual. Sure, the pain that I feel isn’t the same kind of pain I used to feel…it’s different. It’s not codependent nonsense, but it’s still knocking me out. Pain is still just pain.

And my God…do I feel it.