I've been really frustrated this past couple of months. At myself, for once. Where do I start?
A couple of years ago, I briefly dated a girl who I thought was pretty freakin' awesome. She's super smart, super cute, and she's a complete cuddle-fiend. She's just a generally positive person, and every time I touched her I could feel those happy emanations from her like they were heat. Pretty much, she had most of the essential qualities I wanted in somebody I could share my life with. I always associate the color green with her; let's call this magical lady "Emerald."
We broke up under uncertain circumstances after only a couple of months together; I wasn't sure what was really going on with her when she ended things--I could tell there was more on her mind than the little she shared with me at that point--but before dating her I'd been in about the worst relationship ever - and I had vowed when it ended that I wasn't going to go out on a limb for anyone anymore. I'm normally the glue that holds my relationships together. I'd had enough. (Solo glue doesn't get much love from the junk it keeps from falling apart, it seems. I know this now). When Emerald broke up with me, it just happened to be at the one point in my life where I just said... "Okay. Whatever," and let it run its course. I had plenty of other things going on in my life, so I didn't have a lot of time to think about it - which was both good and bad, in retrospect. If I'd tried, I could've probably worked things out with her. But... I didn't. Anyway, on we go.
Shortly thereafter, I started dating somebody else (no, I'm not a serial dater; it was just chance) that I actually grew to love very, very much. We'll call this girl... oh, hell, she'll never see this: her name was Meagan. She was a very different person than Emerald, but no less special. She really wasn't the kind of girl I'd normally date - certainly not what I'd always considered to be "my type," if there is such a thing. She was a lot more... normal. More girly, but also a tomboy, and she had a huge heart for me and her then 3 year old son, Logan. Great kid, great mother, though her and I clashed on quite a lot; despite that, after a year with her there wasn't a doubt in my mind that this was somebody I wanted to start a family with, and somebody I could easily be with forever. She was capable--albeit very reluctant--of communicating with me at a level that allowed us to work through whatever differences came up. We usually had discussions, not fights - and finished with understanding, rather than compromise. It all seemed perfect. That's what I thought, anyway - turns out I was wrong.
Not long after I began the quest to find Meagan the perfect engagement ring, she started a new job, and then a couple weeks later stopped talking to me - just completely shut down. It was March, 2008. I knew the first day that something was wrong, but nothing I could do would get her to open up to me about it. A couple of days after those first signs of trouble, we stopped having sex; we stopped touching; we stopped being intimate in any way. She'd become completely cold. She said she needed space, and she'd work out what was bothering her on her own, and that she just needed me to give her some time. A couple weeks after that, I started sleeping on the couch - and she never did work it out. I never found out what was going on, and now a year and change later I still don't know. I've never been the clueless boyfriend, but for once I honestly haven't the faintest idea what happened that time. We don't talk anymore, so I'm sure I probably never will. I miss Logan, and I wish she would've let me help just for his sake, even. I worry about him a lot, but that's a whole 'nother thing I won't get into right now.
Meagan and I tried to make the roommates arrangement work for both of us, but after a few months I ended up moving out. There was too much memory for me, and not enough space for her new friends and new things that came after me. Every day I dreaded the possibility that she'd bring some other guy home, and I'd have one more unsolved mystery to add to the already unmanageable list attached to her name. I got out before that could happen.
So a few years after our initial romp, Emerald is a bit more grown up, I'm all grown up, and the playing field is a bit more level between us - though I haven't thought about it yet. I have my own place, have found my own happiness, and only think about Meagan and Logan maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Things are looking up. Progress, right?
During the course of trying to figure out why Meagan didn't work out, (another daily routine at the time, though more habitual than necessary by that point), I got to thinking about her qualities and shortcomings which might have contributed to the mystery, and in a roundabout way it led me to thinking about Emerald. I'm not completely sure why, but she popped into my head one day: a random and pleasant memory--though equally as confusing as Meagan--on a train of thought that was otherwise pretty bleak and depressing. I always remembered her very fondly, as I'd become very attached while we were together - even though it was a fairly short time we'd had back then. Our differences had certainly been exaggerated by different maturity levels in various aspects of life, but it was one of the "good" times of my life. If I hadn't had so much going on when Emerald and I first broke up, it would've been her stuck in the endless loop in my head every day for months, for sure.
Then, suddenly, it was January of this year, 2009; and I was thinking about her again. I found myself wondering if she would've ended up doing the same thing to me as Meagan had, and I knew as soon as I thought it that she wouldn't have. It made me really miss her. A lot. And it made me wonder if maybe hers was a relationship that was still salvageable. If I've learned anything from the last 2 years of my life, it's that truly precious things and people are rare, and even more rarely last as long as you hope they will. So I looked her up. I wasn't about to let another opportunity float by without at least reaching for it first.
Emerald and I hadn't parted on the best of terms due to me just letting the whole thing slide on its own, and I had a lot of explaining to do - but I did it. I'd had a lot of time to think about my reasons for not pursuing the relationship with her more aggressively, and for not fighting to keep it alive when it started to falter. I know myself a lot better now than I did even as the very mature young adult that I had been the last time we'd seen each other. Her reaction was understandably hostile and skeptical at first; why hadn't I said any of this earlier, before or just after we'd broken up?; why now? Valid questions, all - and fortunately for me, I knew the answers to all of them, and I answered truthfully. And, impressively, she listened.
We began speaking again, then, and somehow connected in the same way we had before; we just sort of picked up where we'd left off 2 years prior, and it felt really good - like taking care of some extremely important unfinished business.
And then I completely screwed it up. Yeah.
See, I'm normally a pretty happy guy; I'm a realist, and I see life and its contents for what they really are. However, I'm also an absolutely insatiable dreamer. Potential is everywhere; it's usually tough to get me down, and usually tougher to keep me down. What I didn't really realize--and what I'm still realizing--is how cynical and jaded my experience with Meagan has encouraged me to be. I range between two polar opposites in my approach to life: seeing the potential and celebrating every step made toward it, or seeing that potential and loathing people for their apathy towards it. Obviously it hurt me a lot to end such a significant chapter of my life on that kind of a down note, so I wouldn't expect to be completely over that residual cynicism for quite awhile (if ever), but by the time Emerald and I started talking again, I really thought I'd at least gotten it under control.
Well... I was wrong.
I still have these bursts of negativity whenever I think about Meagan which outright pollute whatever else is going on at the moment; to make matters worse, my new roommate and I had a huge falling out about the same time Emerald and I got back in touch, which has been/still is causing me a boat load of additional stress. Still, I'm a survivor; I'm the one who copes and gets through it. I don't make excuses. Usually.
So Emerald and I jump right back into our old relationship in this new environment, and I'm too excited about it to really stop and think about the fact that I probably wasn't ready to get in that deep quite so soon. As it turns out, I should've figured that out beforehand. My baggage was too much; it started to affect her right away despite my best efforts to keep it in hiding, and it ended up ruining things between us even more quickly than the last time 2 years ago! Grr!
I'm just pissed at myself! I hate hurting people, and I hate that doing so accidentally--or negligently, as is more probably the case here--has taken away all of the credibility I worked to create after not fighting for her years ago when it might've mattered. Now, as willing as I am to do whatever it takes, it doesn't matter, because the damage is already done! I'm really not a stupid person - not even for a guy, and I'm trying to tell myself that my track record is virtually spotless in comparison to the average joe, but I can't shake the realization that my recent poor moods have combined with the past's poor circumstances to culminate in a total loss. Emerald is a great girl - WAS a great girl; now, due to my own lack of foresight, I blew it, lost her, and for once it's my own damn fault!
Fuck!
This is not the kind of irony I enjoy.
I'm sorry, Emerald.
Lesson learned.
