All Good Things Must Come To An End

It’s been 6 days since you left me.  Every day is something different.  Either I’m like the roadkill that keeps collecting on speeding tires, or I forget who I am.  You don’t look so happy yourself, either.  But eventually, we’ll fall out of love with each other completely.  The thought of that sends slightly panicking nudges to my spine, but then I also try to iterate to my soul, “that fucker will be out of your life.”

I’m still mad.  You chose someone who wasn’t me.  For whatever reason.  It’s easier for me to think you were just too afraid to leave your comfortable life behind.  But then, if it was so fucking comfortable, why did you come over so often? 

I hate you.  I love you.  I’m all over the place.  Like roadkill. 

..your life has become less livable than his.  Or, you contemplate vengeance on him by killing yourself, because he’ll never forget that he was the root cause of your misery from that.  Sure, he’ll try to find other excuses for why you did what you did, but he’ll know, deep down inside, he could have prevented it.

I can’t stop you from making more mistakes.  From being weak.  From giving into your fears and inability to deal with reality.  I cannot change you.  I wonder what I’m supposed to be doing.  When I’m being myself, who wants this?

Not you.  And not that other guy.  Or that other guy.  Or the guy before him.  Nor the other.  In conclusion, no one really wants this.  It doesn’t matter how hard I’ve worked to be my best, it’s never enough.  It’s never the answer to the same question I’ve had of what makes life worth living.  And I know that I exceed the dreams of any man who could possibly have me, and yet, these men are so disabled from being their real selves.  I cannot fix that.  And I feel like I’ll always be alone.

I always believed that I would die earlier than the age at which I would be “getting old.”  I thought of that as somewhere in my 30s.  Now, with the prospect of kidney issues looming in the distance, I will have more nights, alone, with my poor health, searching for inspiration that keeps me clinging to this one and only opportunity to live.

I don’t know, anymore.  I don’t know if I can fake that, anymore.  This life feels like it should be worth living, and most of the times, I really believed that.  But now, I am uncertain, because I don’t fit in.  People remember good things about me that make them happy, but that only goes so far.  It’s the real me they can’t handle.

I will kill myself.  It’s just a matter of when.  How.  And making sure I get it right.  It will be a glorious experience for me - where I don’t know a damn thing, and it’s within my control.  When I have enough reasons, and I’ve been in pain enough, I’m scared enough, I’m in poor-enough health - I will find a way to leave this world with as much of the memories as I could give the people who wanted them.  I don’t want to live much longer than is necessary. 

I will call you, when it’s about to happen.  I’ll leave you voicemail, so you know it’s really me.  Maybe I’ll even leave a note.  I’ll leave a lot of notes. 

I was a very troubled girl.  I had a deathwish tailing me for the better part of my adolescence.  I finally heeded the call and let things take their course.  And when I found you, I knew there could be no other way to live.

I can’t have you.  No one can have me.  And I know no other way to be.  So that’s how it is.

I’ve tried so many things.  I’ve pushed boundaries.  I pushed myself.  I’ve tried so many things, but none of them matter.  None of this matters.  We all move on.  Some of us are better off taking ourselves out of the lives of those who couldn’t really appreciate.  But it’s okay, we’d like to think we’re doing them a favor, in the long run.  And maybe, just maybe our martyred view on things was enough to make someone think a little more.  Just a bit more, about someone else besides themselves.

Until that moment, my days will be sad.  Because sadness is natural and numbing.  The late nights of drinking and fatalistic thinking will bleed into more of the same.  My purpose to live shrinks knowing my time could very well be cut short by an incurable disease.

We always get over loss.  It happens every day.  You’ll get over your loss of me.  And you’ll eventually just have memories of how I used to be.  That’s good enough.

So if the cards that are dealt me show no promise for a future with you, or for my health, I will spend the rest of my days finding the best way to permanently end my life, for good.

For awhile, I had something good to be remembered by.  And that’s all that matters to me.

Drunkies.  It’s that hour that passes after the witching.  The one that hold so many dark thoughts and memories.

What the fuck are you going to do with me?

All weekend long, it has been a real trial of my own patience, and how much I can bear not knowing, not seeing into you, being without you.

I really hope you’re doing the right thing.  I hope this wait is worthwhile.

Because if it isn’t, you have no fucking idea the wrath that lies ahead.  I will rip your heart apart, with the softness of my unctuous words.  She will hear it all, and you will bear that scar.

She will know everything, and I will have no remorse.  Because it’s the truth.  Everyone, no matter who they are, should always know the truth.

Otherwise, how will we have learned?

There is nothing lonelier than knowing when you write out your thoughts, feelings, vicissitudes of daily life, that you will not be read.

And if you are, in fact, read, you will be ignored.

And if you are not ignored, then you will be neglected.

And if you are not neglected, you will not be contacted.

And when you are not contacted, you realize, you are lonely.

And when you are lonely, you are overcome with the sense that you are nothing.

And when you are nothing, you want to abandon this life.

What is the point, anyway?

I said what I said.  And it was all true.  It’s still true.  It’s still all up to you.

We’re waiting on you.  What’s taking so long?  Is there something else you’d rather be doing?

You have no sanctuary anymore.  You destroyed it in the fire.  Remember?

You fell in love, and now you hate your life.  You fell again, and now you’ll give anything to be free of this decision.  You agonize over your present and future, with the past bearing down on you with its intense guilt.

Such a sad life you live.  How can a man who can simply be, turn it into something so complicated?

My dreams are fading.  They’re wrapped in the sadness of your absence.  And at the same time, I’m getting used to it.

Loving, one day.  Rejection, the next.  How much more can my heart take?

And when he does, I’ll probably give him a good slap on the face, and ask him, “what took you so long?” 

And for the rest of our lives, together, we’ll work it out.

I can’t do this anymore.

I can’t let you treat me this way.  I deserve better.  And I believe you deserve better.  But even when you’re given the chance, you squander it on completely selfish things.  It’s right in front of you, but you’re too inside your head to see it.  And it’s been going on for months now.

If you really want something, you’ll go after it, no matter what the cost is.  If it stays with you, you’ll do whatever you can, but only to the extent that it’s healthy.

You’re not being healthy.  You’re also not healthy for me, right now.

I love you so much, and I want to be with you.  But I’m becoming angry, bitter, jaded, resentful, spiteful, and vengeful, because I cannot have you, and because your indecision has contributed to this.  It’s my fault for feeling this way.  It’s my fault for choosing to wait for you.  It’s my fault for believing that you will change.

My friends, of which I have many, have been a strong force in my life.  They’re my second family.  And they all know me so well, to the extent they want to.  We’re all a variety of fluidity and decisions.  But most of them have conviction.  They take care of their shit, and handle it.  They also handle it efficiently, with few regrets.  Mostly, they take chances, calculated risks.  All my friends - and I mean *all* of them who know about you, which is at least 15 of them, have told me in some way, shape or form:

“He is a coward.  He has an opportunity and won’t take it.  He is not good for you.  He won’t act.  He cheats on his wife and doesn’t communicate with her - how will he treat you if you ever get together?  If we are going to hang out, you cannot bring him up.  I don’t like the way he treats you.  He’s been terrible to you, and you don’t deserve that kind of treatment.”

In some ways, they had the same feedback about my ex.  And I wondered, am I painting the wrong picture?  My gut feeling says they’re right.  You don’t treat me well.  You hide me away.  You’re dishonest with your wife about us.  You won’t walk away from your marriage even though you’re in love with me, you’ve committed a part of your soul to me, and you clearly don’t like your wife anymore.  Whatever you’re holding onto, it is killing us, and my love for you.

No, I won’t be lingering about for long, like I wrote about, in my “unknown, explained” email.  I can’t be, because it’s not healthy.  I won’t wait around much longer for you, because my heart and healthy changes from therapy and friends won’t allow it. 

You don’t like me pushing on you, and I’m sorry, but this is the last push I’ll make.  You’re on your own.  I’ve told you everything I could possibly tell you, short of being WITH you.  And that’s all you’re going to get.  If you want to know more about me, then be with me.  I’ve already given you so much more than you deserved, and you have taken far more than you have given.

I’m not being impatient, I’m being myself.  I can’t indulge your desire for duplicity and condone your fears or lack of action.  I’m not going to chase after you, anymore.  I am done.

It’s your turn to come after me.  My window of opportunity for you is only going to last as long as I see conviction and action from you.

I get so tired.  So tired of the way things are.  I’m running into a brick wall.  Apparently, I’m really good it now.  I’ve been killing enough brain cells such that as soon as I fall on the ground, I get back up, and do it again.   In fact, I wind myself up, beforehand, like this guy.

No running start for this guy.

I don’t know if I have the patience to wait.  It’s not that there’s anyone else I am interested in, it’s that-

My.  Heart.  Is.  Fucking.  Tired.

I can’t sleep.  I can’t feel at peace.  This feels like the days and nights drag on.  And on.  I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to love you, if we both come out of this alive.  I’ll need a fucking transplant to heal this beaten-down, blood-pumping organ of mine.

I am losing it.  I can see my sanity slip away, bit by bit, every day.  Less composure.  Less brevity.  Less aplomb.

We are now entering the territory of where I imagine vindictive plots of exposing all our sordid secrets and lies, in a moment of impulsive vengeance.  I am so much more than she will ever be.

And yet, you’re still there.

My.  Heart.  Is.  Fucking.  Exhausted.

Have some of my soul, too, while you’re at it, since I probably won’t need it anymore, after you.

You came over to sit next to me, look into my eyes, giggle a bit.  I stiffened, because I knew, this was one of those “first-date” tactics.  Good try, buddy, but it’s not going to happen.

Oh, you want to kis—you get a hug.  No, really, you get a hug.  What part of ‘hug’ are you not clear on?  Enjoy your hug.  Because that’s the last one you’re gonna get from me.

Stop smiling.  No, really, stop it.  I’m awesome, but you seem pretty insecure to me.  Interrupting me to tell me you relate to everything in my past?  You are way too interested.  And it’s disturbing.  You might be one of those “lotion.  skin.  hose.  again.” dudes.  I like crazy, but I like my face attached to my skull even more.

That’s nice, you like teh ‘erbs?  Oh, and you have all these awesome experiences that you just can’t find without your homemade pharmacy?  Um, for the record, I had to call 3 lawyers to make sure I wouldn’t get a knock during the night by some annoyed DEA agent.  I hope your fun was worth it, but fuck you, and don’t ever contact me again.

Yes, you’re cute.  But you’re not that cute.  If you didn’t open your mouth, I might have changed my mind.  If there was some way I could re-absorb those brain cells you stole when you opened your mouth..

I’m glad you like my ass.  But could you please stop talking about just my ass?  That’s the quickest way to *DELETE*

That was an interesting phone call.  Rather than tell me something interesting about your job, you wasted my 20 minutes on bitching about your industry, how hard it is to get money, how there’s no real prospects for your line of work, how everyone is hurting..  Jesus fuck.  You really need a fist up your ass to undo all that work stress.  Sorry, it will not be mine.

No, I will not discuss anything D/s relationship until I know you’re not a fucktard Dominant wannabe.  Oh, that includes long-distance.  I haven’t fucking met you in person yet.  You might smell like a wet dog.  And I’m supposed to drive up to *you*?

You need to calm down.  I know you’re bi-polar, but seriously, I know that’s not me making you manic as all get-out.  Please put your eyes back in their sockets.  For the love of God, you’re freaking me out.

Im sorry but I find ur use of lolspeek typpos n lac of puntuatuion disterbink

Yeah.  Not ready.  And some how, I don’t think the Internet dating population is ready for me, either.

I always hoped or
Did all this work for
Some peace of mind…

Please explore my love’s endurance
And stay, stay
Please endure my love’s exhortations
No way
No fucking way
No

On this side
You wanna see that
There’s no change
And somewhere to stay

  [Interpol - “Try It On”]

I am so fucking pissed at you.  I don’t think I have ever felt this angry in the time we’ve known each other.  You don’t get to do this to me.  You don’t get to diminish me.  You don’t get to pretend, anymore.

You had access to everything in me.  And not even that was going to be enough to cover your fears.  Your fears killed us.  They killed any future we’d have together. 

[The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.]

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, First Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1933

Who are you?  I don’t know.  I thought I did.  I wrapped myself inside and around you.  I cocooned you in what I believed you deserved.  And there was very little effort on your part, to receive that.

[No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.]

EDMUND BURKE, On the Sublime and Beautiful

I had blind faith in you.  That you would follow your heart, and be honest with yourself.  That you would not capitulate to your fears, or continue to hide away who you are.  I have lost respect in you.  I don’t know if I can recover.

[That’s all it takes, one drop of fear to curdle love into hate.]

JAMES M. CAIN, Double Indemnity

You are no different from him.  He, whose fear turned him into an angry, misogynistic, sociopathic abuser who fed on my fears of abandonment, change, rejection, and failure.  He tortured my soul with his manipulation tactics, fear of the world, and tried to suppress my passion and strength.  At least he did this in the open, while you hurt me from behind your broken marriage.

[You can’t stop being afraid just by pretending everything that scares you isn’t there.]

MICHAEL MARSHALL, The Upright Man

I’m extremely hurt by you.  I don’t know if I will recover.  On the one hand, you tell me your dreams, and how pervasive my presence is.  You express the fantastic life you’ve imagined, what we would do, where we would go, and you are excited.  You are elated.  I make you happier.  I take your sadness and sorrow, and convert it into a sense of adventure and forward-looking hope.  I inspire you with more ideas, to answer questions about yourself that motivate you.  I am honest with you, and remain consistent about my feelings.  You always know what my heart wants, even when I don’t say.

You are a spineless coward, who would rather sacrifice the most powerful thing in the world - love - to your own fears.

Are you that cruel, not just to others, but to yourself?  When given such a wonderful opportunity at a better life, you choose to turn away, because you are afraid?  Then you do not deserve that life, and you never did.  You’ve shattered your opportunity, and your lifelong lamentation can now begin.  

Every day is an opportunity to stop being afraid of changing your life.  But some people pass off that fear as complacency in their situation.  The real truth beneath that coping mechanism is what the body wants.  Where the body wants to be.  Who the body wants to be with.  The body doesn’t lie.  The heart never lies.

[Fear is a quicksand that slows and grips and strangles, leaving its victims unable to act, too timid to do what life requires.]

BOB LONSBERRY, A Various Language

You are too afraid to live your life.  You cannot will yourself to act.  Someone else has to do it for you.  You cannot stand up for yourself.  Someone else has to do it for you.  You cannot be honest with yourself.  Someone else has to do it for you.  You cannot live your life.  Someone else will take it from you.

At least he tried.  He tried to be honest.  He opened up to me about his fears, and had the willingness to hear what he could.  And when he couldn’t, he turned me away.  And I turned to you.  But he tried.  Short-lived, but enough of a spark, to make me try, too.  Even without the intimacy, it gave me a modicum of hope.

You give me no hope.  Because you won’t even try.  You are too afraid to lose this destructive life you’ve built for yourself.  It’s fucked-up, it’s broken, it’s not realistic, it’s not healthy, but you still call it yours, and wish to protect it from what you truly desire.  When a man hangs on for dear life to a sinking ship, it says much about what the man holds within himself - desperation, his last breath, and his resignation. 

A man who turns his back on opportunity does not deserve more opportunities.  And when the opportunity is so rare, he has foresaken his personal hope for anything greater.  And he is locked into a life, by his own choosing, in the shadow of his lost hopes. 

[You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.]

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, You Learn by Living

This is not a premonition of your life.  This is who you are.  A fearful man, who will capitulate to someone even more fearful than him of the truth.  That is a black hole that will continue growing, and I will not be engulfed.  She is a terrible coward.  But you are her enabler.  And you should know better, after all that you and I have been through.

[“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”]

                                                                  ― William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

Maybe, someday, you will wake up from your slumber of fear.  And when you do, I may be long gone, onto far greater things than you will ever know.  I will know happiness, and you will only have your lamentations.  

You said:

What you really want and need is a true partner — someone who complements your own personality, understands you, someone who can be strong where you are not, someone who will let you be strong and shine in your own way, someone who wants to do things with you and share adventures with you, someone who really wants to walk hand-in-hand with you through life.

I believe you wanted to be that man.  I believed you could be.  But you will never be.  For as long as you choose to remain a coward.

So man the FUCK up. 

My sheets still smell like you.  I still have your scent all over me.  You were just inside me.  And now I know why you’re afraid.  I can’t compete.  I can’t stand up to a whole army of obligation, guilt, loss, and fear.  I could do that, with you by my side, but I couldn’t do it alone.  I don’t think you could, either.  I could certainly stand up to her, and show solidarity.  But even I have limitations of how strong I can be.

But I did this before.  I managed, some how.  I don’t know how I did.  I decided, then I formed a plan, and I just executed on it.  All the other things you fear were also hanging in the back of my mind.  But I didn’t think about that.  I thought about freedom.  I thought about being free from obligation.  I thought about the things I wanted to do, that I couldn’t before.  The cliff came and went.  And again.  And it would keep pushing me back to familiarity.  But I cried out my fears, my anguish, my sadness, and the sudden sense of loss of all that time I invested, all those talks.  Everything must go.  Fire sale of a marriage. 

When you’ve been avoiding the uncomfortable things for awhile, it only hits you much harder, when you make a decision to leave.  It’s because you’re faced with all the missed opportunities where things seemed possible to turn around.  But once your heart hits the cliff, there’s no going back.  You’ve thrown yourself over, and you’ll never be the same again.

I can still see your face, in ecstasy, in my hands, unable to resist the pressure, the feelings you have that you must do this.  Guilt can’t keep you back.  Sadness can’t keep you back.  I watch your mouth open, letting out a lustful moan, and you can’t hold back.  It’s primal.  It’s more than you can bear.  Let me help you.

And you’re inside me.  Pulsate.  Again.  I’m your private sanctuary.  What makes feel you alive lives in me.  And again.  Still inside, you breathe.  Your exquisite skin puddled with sweat and salt.  I lick the drops like an open wound, craving nourishment of health.  Let me help you.

Let it all go.  And give into what life has planned for you. 

I stood over the edge of a very tall building today.  Looking over, my palms started to sweat.  And I thought, this feels a lot like waiting for you.  My body reacted before my mind did, and I remember all the sleepless nights I continue to have, trying to shut down my conscious mind from thinking of you. 

You’re sorry.  You know it’s hard for me.  You can’t forget me, you said, even if you tried. 

I get a modicum of satisfaction from knowing this.  But that modicum is wrapped in the doubt that I’m there, in your future.

It’s like running to the edge of a cliff, where your memories have led me to jump.  You know that falling is what keeps me from sleep.  Every night, the same cliff, the same story.

Only it feels like this time, you’re pushing us both.  So that whatever love we had, inside, has to die, to save your marriage.

Every time I strike up a conversation with a man who seems eager to learn all about me, my mouth opens, the words come out, and there’s nervous laughter.  Followed by a little blushing.  Flattery.  Eyes darting from window to face, to door, to table, to their nose, left eye, the mouth is moving, and I can hear things.  My mind dips back into the past, and comes out smothered in a memory of you.  I imagine myself licking the syrupy taste of our fantasy together, musing about where we would go together, just sitting in a cafe and talking about anything.  Context lays down such strong roots, when you are deeply in love as you’ve never felt with anyone before. 

Oh, right, I’m on a ‘date’ of some sort.  Nevermind.  There’s no point to ‘dating’ when all I can think of is you.  All they get is a ghost of me.

Ah, Goethe.  Mozart.  Such a sense of humor.

I went scouring the web for something schadenfreude.  And ‘lo, I should come upon a Wikipedia entry for the interpretation of an infamous Goethe quote. 

Every day is like a funeral dirge. Sometimes it sounds really nice, because as most funeral dirges go, with everyone concentrating on the dead body or ashes that lay before them, it would be such a faux pas to break out in creative dissonance. 

All the sad people would be staring back at the organ dude, wondering, “what the fuck are you doing, ruining this last moment of peace for the departed?” 

Love is kind of like the dead body, or urn of ashes.  Every day, there is some mourning to be done in its name.  And while I can fantasize that it’ll somehow rise from the dead, I’m a realist.  It’ll just haunt me in dreams, until eventually, too, I’ll die just the same.