The State of Disunion

How am I feeling?

This is a question I haven't bothered to ask myself in a while. Ok, I've asked, but I haven't answered it necessarily. And of course, the standard answer goes for anyone else who asks. I'm fine. What else did you want to hear? Huh?

But maybe I'm not exactly fine. Not 100% deep down inside. And some self-psycho-analysis is long overdue. I think the real answer could be I'm a little unsettled. On the general surface of things I'm doing great. It's Spring (finally! thank God), work is great (if a little boring lately) the family is fine and together, and I'm getting to that place where the relationships and friendships I have are the only ones I want to be in (more on this later, when I can put it in non-offensive words ha-ha).

I recently ended a 'grey-area relationship' with someone I might have been in love with for close to ten years. It was just one of those things: distance, timing, the illusion of having time to deal with it sometime in the future when we were both really ready for a committed relationship. In a friend's words, he was on my shelf, and I was on his shelf (more on The Shelf later. Do you notice a pattern here? I should definitely write more.)

So much for good intentions. Ha!

What I thought was the beauty of this relationship was that we were in it together (in another friend's words, I'm soooo naive, or at least semi-naive at the very least. Yes, more of this TOO later). But I still like to believe that we were friends. He has been very supportive through the years and a great friend, which is really all I needed. The other stuff came up once in a while, and we dealt with it the best way we could, as friends.

But still, I did my homework. There was the on-then-off girlfriend who I heard about from our friends even without asking, and my life wasn't exactly a convent either so things were definitely not in the tragic aisle. But where I was kinda, sorta open about what was going on in my life in that direction, it was a bit interesting that she was a closely guarded secret. Even in spite of my almost obvious leading questions. Strike 1.

So recently we had The Talk. He talked. And I agreed. If we kept going and dancing around this grey area between friends and whatever-it-was, someone (Me) was going to get hurt eventually. And it was time to be grown ups. Which was all very reasonable and honest from both of us. And then he asked that we should remain friends. Strike 2. (For no reason. I just hate the can we still be friends line.)

And then that part of 'Us' was over. It was really a bittersweet moment. I might have been a little teary (NOT) and his eyes may have been shiny (or it was just the dashboard late at night) and we said goodbye. And I was fine. I told myself it was nice to finally have him come clean and tell me the whole truth, and really, what were the chances that we would end up together if we danced around this all these years. I didn't have any regrets, our friendship had not stood in the way of any great loves and I had learned a lot and grown as a person by knowing him.

Really tipping the balance on the naive scale now, Dami...

So yes. I was fine. Until 3am that night when he sent me a text to ask "How are you feeling?" And that's when the rumble began. Strike 3.

What was I supposed to say to that?

"I'm feeling a little broken, and I can't really blame you because I knew what I was doing."

"Remember when I said we could be friends? I didn't mean 3 hours later, I was thinking maybe in a few months when all this has gone away and we meet for drinks in the presence of many other friends."

"I'm trying to sleep but since you're awake maybe I should ask you how you're feeling."

But I just waited until it was a decent hour in the morning and replied, I'm fine. Because the truth is, even though I was a little bruised I knew I would be fine, eventually. And we can even be friends like that, in a not so distant future. And in my mind I was doing him a favor by taking away the responsibility for taking care of me and making sure I was okay. (I know, good intentions and the road to heaven, or was it hell?)

But these are things you can't really say to someone when you are trying to change a relationship without breaking it, because it defeats the purpose. So now he thinks I hate him, and I refuse to think about it or find a way back into that conversation. And what do you know? I actually am fine.

xoxo