November 11th 2010
Email to Stefan
[ excerpt ]
I’m sorry, and I’ve been an ass.
I had extended the offer of starting over, starting new, trying to hang out. I meant it. I really did. (I still want to.) But when I made that offer, it didn’t occur to me that time had continued, and that there might be new tales, new facets that might peel apart all those wounds I’d only just gotten to not bleed anymore. It wasn’t fair to you to have extended that, and then been hurt. I should have made sure I was more healed. And I’ve done that again and again. I’ve not done this to fuck with you, or to mess with your head, though I understand it likely had such an effect. I’ve been pushing myself. I’ve been trying so hard, again and again, to find a way to be ok. Rushing it. To be able to enjoy you as totally and completely and entirely as I always did. I tried, and I imploded, and I confused you and tore apart the flimsy floor beneath you.
I don’t think I can do this if I don’t feel welcome in your home, or while I feel separated from the rest of your life. I don’t know if I can do that if I feel…. limited. Contained.
Part of what I thought we were to each other was… everything. I was enjoying the fact that you were my everything.
See something neat?
take a picture and send it to Stefan.
Something awesome happen?
Yay! Call Stefan!
Something terrible happen?
sniff. call stefan.
Want to go do something?
why would I want to do something with anyone more than I’d want to do it with Stefan?
Thinking thoughts about things?
I’ll share my ponderings with Stefan!
Find neat stuff online?
I’ll send Stefan links, too!
It seems…. it seems that this might have been putting pressure on you. Making you feel guilty or wrong for having friendships and enjoying the company of others. That was never the spirit in which I enjoyed you, or the sharing of things. I was never territorial, nor offended that you’d enjoy someone else. The ONLY time that I’d felt a twinge of that sort of feeling was when you’d gone to Atlantic City – but shortly after, I chastised myself for that reaction and apologised to you for it. My reaction was far more to do with how much I felt we were drifting apart, how much I missed our sleepovers, how much I missed being physically close and snuggly with you, than it had to do with you hanging out with someone besides me and having fun.
But for the past year, again and again…. I miss you so much it hurts. It really really hurts. It’s a sucking chest wound of empty cavernous ache. And I tried…. and I told myself that regardless of my place in your life, it was too important to have you IN my life than not. I shoved my own emotional hurt and needs aside, paved over it all, and put on a brave face. And every single time, seeing you and hanging out with you was ….. god. It was always like a hundred wings in my chest…. and like finally being released from that small hot box and breathing in that first gulping gasp of sweet fresh autumn air…. and like talking to the only other Gelfling on the planet… and like holding a tiny baby kitten; frail and delicate and DON’T FUCK IT UP.
And I’d enjoy you.
And then …. either the next day, or five… my mind would start thinking while I slept. While I sleep, this happens, I can’t even control it. Each time this would happen, I’d wake up, flat on my back. Staring at the cieling, I’d break. Just break into sobs. Waking up to crying. Being in love, and wanting to be romantic partners (thinking we already rather were, for a time), missing so much what we were, what I thought we were, wishing for that again but more, and… feeling that rejection. It shatters me and I can’t stop it.
You, meanwhile, would have been trying to put some pieces back together, at my invitation no less, when I then come running to you screaming and crying about everything, just as you were starting to feel like you might have ground under your feet again.
And that’s what keeps happening.
And it hasn’t been fair to you.
And I’m sorry.
I tried, and in trying, I hurt and confused you. I bounced you around, and I’ve not meant to. I’ve taken the trust that you so rarely invest in anything, and weakened it. And that’s a serious and terrible thing to do to someone. Especially for me to do to you.
I’m sorry.
I keep trying. I shouldn’t. But I do. Because I can’t NOT try. I can’t NOT try to make things ok. But…. it’s my trying that has made everything worse, and eroded us being able to understand and trust that what we say is what we mean and can handle.
I can’t touch you if you might (want to / need to) be with other women. There’s a certain closeness that I only feel/express when intimate, and knowing that we only share that with each other. I can’t hold you the same place if we are platonic, it’s just not something I’m emotionally capable of. I can’t feel close and seamless with you (like I used to) when I have big gaping holes in my understanding of why, and I’ve questions left dangling. I can’t have an emotional relationship that’s this crucial to me when I don’t know how things work. I miss feeling close to you, and feeling that there’s nothing we keep from each other that’s still in our lives. I… I…. love you…. and seeing you, not feeling reciprocation of that giddy bond that made midnight food shopping some of my happiest adventures, like I did for years EVERY time you’d arrive at my door, or we’d speak at dawn… feeling that absence…. wondering how much of it I imagined… how much of it I made mean so much more…. well, I just can’t seem to overcome the emotions of panic and despair these strike within me.
I think you may have interpreted similar proclimations from me as being ultimatums, and felt pressured and coerced. But these are not ultimatums. It’s kinda late for that, anyway, I suppose. It’s what makes me a functioning human being, or a broken one. I should have stood tall and maintained which things I needed to understand from you, which things I could handle, and that the lack of these would keep me away. And then I should have walked away, and not knocked on your door until I was whole again. But ….
I caved.
I missed you.
I’m sorry.
My caring for you has, in the end been our undoing.
I’m sorry I’ve been an ass. I knew a year ago that my heart was broken, and I should not have assumed I could patch it up with bandaids and keep on going as neither exclusive nor romantic nor intimate nor platonic. In doing so, I’ve let you down and hurt us both.
Stupid, isn’t it? That caring too much can hurt us both so? Ruin the best person I ever had? Plant a minefield of suspicion and stab wounds where we used to be safe and warm?
Stupider, is that I still dream of you finding me, kissing me, and we spending the next 8 hours alone somewhere… whispering our souls to each other, purging every burning question and offering every answer in soft tones, kissing away every hurt, looking each other in the eyes, and by dawn… being completely together without doubt from then until forever.
I guess that’s my problem, isn’t it?
This is muuuuuch longer than I meant. Always happens that way.
Love,
Rachael
PS. Please, when you want to remember me, look to our emails from before last autumn.