And then, when I was looking at a picture of my ex-girlfriend, I realized something. It clicked in my mind, that the cause of all my grief, was that I lost a lover, but not a friend. I never had that time or opportunity to find a friend in Sarah, and now, after looking at her profile on Facebook, there is no other way in which I can look at her. She was never just another friend, she was a girlfriend, a significant other in my life. A person who became my life.
I can't look at her. I can't talk to her. I can't even bring myself to visit her. And my heart screams at me to do all those things.... yet I can not think of what to say or when to visit, or what we could even do if we hung out. My mind is scrambled and I feel awkward about anything involving her.
And so there she is. Not a classmate, not an old friend, not even just another student who went to my school, but a lover that I can't forget. A beautiful young girl that has probably moved on in her life, and probably doesn't even think about me. After all the effort and love and care I put into my relationship with her, it never dawned on me to put more into a friendship with her. So now I've lost it all. She's just an image in my mind of what was and what could have been. An image of happiness that was foolishly lost.
And I still have all these damn things from our relationship -- gifts, pictures, cards, drawings -- lying around my house and car and dorm room. I just want to take it all, box it up, and leave it at her doorstep, because it brings too much pain to look at all the memories we made. I don't know when I'll have the courage to do that. I don't know if I'll ever have the courage to do that.
I think you should do it. At least you'd be rid of all that stuff, and when it's not there for you to look at it, and you physically let it go, it is easier for you to not focus on it emotionally.
ReplyDeleteI packed up David's stuff a long time ago in several ziplocks, I think after the second time we broke up, and I never unpacked them. I actually hid them somewhere in my room, in a box or something. I hope to not find them for a long enough time that I can remember something good about the relationship.
But altogether, it was *just* a relationship. A love, or a passion, or now, I'd really just reduce it to some sort of absurd physical attraction. Friends never worked. And no matter how badly you want something to happen sometimes, you just have to realize that things are the way they are to teach you a lesson that you can apply to the bigger, better parts of your life that may actually make a difference (i.e., a longer-term relationship).
I hope you come to realize that you have not lost anything at all, but you have actually gained wisdom and understanding about what you, Kyle, actually want in a relationship. And it wasn't her. And it's okay.
Sometimes even images of happiness can still incite happiness, even after you realize that it's all just superficial.