The Breakup
It’s better to have loved and lost than to never to have loved at all.
For some reason I hear that in Ronald Coleman’s voice. It may be true, but I wonder. Is it the mere experience of the deep relationship that love should be that is the valuable thing? Are the memories that linger after the relationship dies what makes it better to have experienced it? Maybe only Ronald Coleman knows. Having just lost a relationship I’m trying to figure this out.
I can’t tell you when we really started the relationship. It may have been the Sting concert in St. Louis. I know I chased her for years like my dog chases a tennis ball. I wrote to her and sent cards but I don’t have copies of them so I can’t date them. I blogged about her visiting me in July, 2005. I have correspondence from her but none of it’s dated. Actually, I had correspondence. It all went in the trash this morning. All the talk about being her “Zen hugger”, leaving her breathless and her loving me seemed pretty vacuous this morning
I’ll grant freely that living in different cities, four hundred miles apart was taxing on our relationship. Weekends together were great. To top that off, when I could travel north I felt compelled to share the time with my Father. It was hard. I remember being accused once of only seeing her as a side trip while visiting him. That hurt. I guess in the end, she needed more from a man than I could provide from seven hours south. It was hard.
In the end, I fought harder than her to keep us alive and finally realized it. I’d call and leave messages and she wouldn’t return the calls. I realize now, that was her way of ending our relationship. Avoidance. If you don’t feed and water a plant it will eventually, quietly die.
We would remain friends she said, after all, our families have ties that go back years and years and years. I believed it for a week. I called one Sunday evening before she left for a trip out west. She answered with the most cheerful, happy voice I’d heard from her in ages. She was eating dinner and would call me back. I waited. She never called. If this is friendship, I prefer my dog.
I’ve been lonely before. I’ve not done things that I didn’t want to do alone. When we were together, even though miles apart, I never felt lonely. Now, having experienced love and lost, the loneliness seems compounded. A friend told me to pretend I was happy. I tried it. It didn’t work. I think this is a better approach when you have an audience to be happy for.
Ronald Coleman was full of shit.
For some reason I hear that in Ronald Coleman’s voice. It may be true, but I wonder. Is it the mere experience of the deep relationship that love should be that is the valuable thing? Are the memories that linger after the relationship dies what makes it better to have experienced it? Maybe only Ronald Coleman knows. Having just lost a relationship I’m trying to figure this out.
I can’t tell you when we really started the relationship. It may have been the Sting concert in St. Louis. I know I chased her for years like my dog chases a tennis ball. I wrote to her and sent cards but I don’t have copies of them so I can’t date them. I blogged about her visiting me in July, 2005. I have correspondence from her but none of it’s dated. Actually, I had correspondence. It all went in the trash this morning. All the talk about being her “Zen hugger”, leaving her breathless and her loving me seemed pretty vacuous this morning
I’ll grant freely that living in different cities, four hundred miles apart was taxing on our relationship. Weekends together were great. To top that off, when I could travel north I felt compelled to share the time with my Father. It was hard. I remember being accused once of only seeing her as a side trip while visiting him. That hurt. I guess in the end, she needed more from a man than I could provide from seven hours south. It was hard.
In the end, I fought harder than her to keep us alive and finally realized it. I’d call and leave messages and she wouldn’t return the calls. I realize now, that was her way of ending our relationship. Avoidance. If you don’t feed and water a plant it will eventually, quietly die.
We would remain friends she said, after all, our families have ties that go back years and years and years. I believed it for a week. I called one Sunday evening before she left for a trip out west. She answered with the most cheerful, happy voice I’d heard from her in ages. She was eating dinner and would call me back. I waited. She never called. If this is friendship, I prefer my dog.
I’ve been lonely before. I’ve not done things that I didn’t want to do alone. When we were together, even though miles apart, I never felt lonely. Now, having experienced love and lost, the loneliness seems compounded. A friend told me to pretend I was happy. I tried it. It didn’t work. I think this is a better approach when you have an audience to be happy for.
Ronald Coleman was full of shit.
posted by steve | 9:35 AM
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