I miss you, and I'm sorry

I am feeling a bit ambivalent today. I suppose that isn’t accurate, I have been ambivalent for quite some time. It has been exactly 5 months since the last time, I saw her. It has been exactly 4 months since we spoke on the phone, and it has been over 1 month since I sent a communication. I am sure it sounds stupid to even track something like this but the significance of it brings me to my knees sometimes. It makes me sad. We are no longer connected. Each and every tether that remained between us, systematically removed. It really isn’t surprising to me just takes my breath away sometimes to think that even after all this time and the tumultuousness of our relationship that I can’t help but feel lots of love and warmth.

December 29th, 2019, I reached out via messenger to a person who shared two things in common with me. One was my former employer; the other was a woman we both fell in love with. As I reflect on it, I can’t help but wonder what the heck I was thinking doing this in the first place. I know that I did it because she encouraged me to, in fact she seemed hopeful that by contacting this mutual connection, I would not pursue things with her further. That clearly wasn’t the outcome. I am grateful for my time with her. What I am deeply struggling with is the aftermath. I lost a tremendous person. I lost someone who I could be myself with, who helped me to see the value in life and what it ACTUALLY has to offer. Those are tremendous gifts and I feel very empty without that.

There have been so many times I have wanted to reach out, to talk to her, to hear her voice, seek her advice. Obviously, that isn’t an option but it doesn’t keep me from wishing things were different. It's torture sometimes to know that someone you care about wants nothing to do with you. I mean nothing. No professional relationship, friendship, romance, nothing. It’s as if we never were. And that is where our mutual contact and I lose commonality, she still has a relationship with her. In fact, if I reflect on what I know she has maintained a relationship with all of her exes in one way shape or form. That’s quite an acknowledgement folks, means I left quite a legacy. One that informed the decision to be no contact with me.

Ambivalence, is tricky because it leaves you stuck. How do you decide to stay or go is always the biggest question? What I have realized in all of this is that for me the good outweighed the bad. I know I was horrible at times, self-centered, arrogant, down right cold and mean. I may have spent a lot of time denying that reality but it can’t be denied. I was unbearable at times and what I didn’t want to hear was how bad that was for her. How tremendously damaging, triggering it was for someone with C-PTSD.

I believed in our forever, foolish, I know. I was naïve to think that the unhealed parts of me and the unhealed parts of her would ever yield anything good. What I counted on was that we both wanted the same thing. We wanted a baby, we were committed to growing, we wanted to work together. I know I fucked a lot of shit up between her and I. I was not absolved of any wrong doing no matter how hard I tried to deny my culpability. And yet as I write this, I can’t help but think, I fucking miss her. I miss the debates, the deep conversation, our differences, our similarities. I think about how rigid I was in my thinking. I recall an argument, regarding her home and my feelings of ever living in it and I think of how egocentric and arrogant I was. Whatever home we would have had that one or another would have been a home not because of location but because we would have made it a home together. One of my biggest issues was wanting it all my way. If I could settle my nervous system down then this would all be ok, do things my way, it will be ok. I failed our partnership by fucking being an island. There I was, the solo act. And as a result, no baby, no home, no life together, nothing. Five months of not laying eyes on the person I love. It feels awful.

I spent my whole life feeling bad about myself, feeling not good enough. I was my mother’s punishment. I was the child who got a hole cracked in her head and no one protected me. I was beaten countless times, verbally and emotionally abused regularly. I self-harmed regularly. Drugs, alcohol, sex. The only way anyone found value in me is if I did what they wanted and the only time I found value in me was when I gave my body away. That is my reality. I spent the last months recovering from feeling like a piece of shit, feeling like I wasn’t worthy of love, like I wasn’t worthy of her love. It has taken me more months to realize that I am worthy of love, that I am not all bad.

I miss you, and I am sorry.