Back Of The Class
Posted on | November 25, 2007
When is enough, enough?
When do you sit back and, after all the perceptions, all the balancing of what you want and he wants, do you say, "I can’t take anymore and I’m walking away?"
There are times I think I haven’t given enough.
I haven’t been patient enough to see all angles. To even begin too understand all points of view.
You love someone and there are constant tests. It’s inevitable. Testing in love is as natural as breathing.
When will I be hurt? What is going to happen that’s going to push me to an edge where I’ll have to make a decision?
All these things ran through my mind.
I was tested.
I failed. Or passed; that ending isn’t necessarily mine for the understanding just yet.
It had been over a year.
And STILL I was put on the back shelf for his life.
For his defenses that I just couldn’t penetrate.
His childhood had coloured so much his adulthood, his past covered so much of his future that the castle walls were guarded by much more than moats, much more than drawbridges.
We had opened up to each other and I’m in no way denying that I too had defenses but I truly thought I’d let them down.
Opened myself to hurt, too the possibility of love.
More often than not I had expressed myself honestly.
"I love you", I would say. "I want you too be happy and be who you are."
I’ve often said, it’s easy to love someone for their good qualities (and he had them in spades) but it’s harder to love them for their faults.
He would never stop talking but I understood that.
He wasn’t heard in his other life and he needed to vent. I let him. Even when that meant that I wasn’t.
There are things you can handle and things you can’t.
He often didn’t hear me.
Didn’t let me express myself or even let me finish a story.
But how can you expect someone to let you finish when they’re desperate to be heard.
Over time I’d be heard and I could see down the road enough to know that, that would not always be the case.
He demanded more, or did he? It seemed a constant din.
I tried my best not to ask more than he could give but I’m sure, in his opinion, I’d asked way too much.
If he were reading this right now he’d think I was so demanding and so selfish that I couldn’t see past my own needs to understand his.
Isn’t that always the way?
I’m sure he’d have something to say about how horrible and unjust I was during our tenure together.
Over a year and still I only got too see him once a week.
More if his ex would acquiesce to being, not left behind but part of the whole.
His ex. God, his ex.
Princess Dianna once said in an interview, about her relationship with Prince Charles, that there were three people in her relationship.
That was what I went through.
And gladly, you must understand I never once wanted him to abandon his responsibilities he had elsewhere.
I just wanted to be a consideration. More than just an afterthought.
So here I am, biting my nails, cruising on the net to satisfy my basic, human needs.
Waiting for some sign, the proverbial worm on the hook for the fish, that I was in his consciousness.
More than just a retreat from his life, more than just an escape from his demented cage.
I loved. I know that. That’s the one thing I can hold on too. I gave. I can hold on to that, too. I put aside my own immediate wants to give him room to understand his worth.
It blew up in my face.
Regrets?
Many.
In fact the amount of possibilities that I’d let go for the concept of happiness with him astounds even me.
I’m not that attractive.
I’m not that wonderful, that precious, that I would believe I’m the catch I want too be.
The desired object that is sought and held on too, put behind protective glass to preserve for a lifetime.
God I tried.
So was it my failure? Was it his?
I suppose I have to let history decide.
In the mean time it means that I’m alone again.
Me and my dog are couple-less. A Yin without a Yon. I’ve survived before. I’ll make it through this.
He surprised me.
Telling me his feelings and I just stood there shaking me head.
What did I do?
The things he was saying, my brain was racing with deniability.
The two sides to the story becoming clearer, he thought I was out "scoring" while he was away.
The truth was I was sitting here, at the computer, in front of the television, smoking and sucking back cocktails just zoning out.
He thought every time I went out to a bar, dancing or hanging out with friends, my face was buried in someone else’s privates.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
He said I’d given him an ultimatum.
I don’t recall it being an ultimatum but an extension of time that I constantly changed the expiration date.
I just wanted two days a week. That’s all.
Now I’m wondering if that was pettiness on my part.
My stubbornness saying that he wasn’t going to get this, he wasn’t going to win.
I didn’t see it that way.
But I rushed him out the door because I didn’t know what else to say.
It was that No Doubt song "Don’t Speak".
His trust, my trust challenged on a daily basis. Maybe we were just too damned similar.
I do know this…I’d give up that damned date just to be with him.
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