A little reality doesn’t hurt either

Yesterday I had a very insightful conversation with a very special friend. A friend who came to be in a very serendipitous way. I guess you could say it was fate. And because of my conversation with him today I came to understand that I have been holding on and hoping for something that has a close to negative possibility of happening. No matter how much I give, I hope, and I do, there’s a limited amount of miracles allotted for every relationship, and my friend helped me understand that I might have just ran out of miracles for this one, at least for now.

As you know, C and I had agreed we would give us a fair chance. We committed ourselves to time, emotional closeness, and monogamy, knowing that given the circumstances (his work style and the distance) this would be no easy task. The fist 4 to 6 weeks were good. He really lived up to his commitment of not going MIA beautifully, and I truly appreciated it. But then things started to fall back into the old behavioral patterns, and by the time we finally got to see each other again I was a bit disappointed. The meeting was good, nothing breathtaking, but ok. The time spent was ridiculously short in terms of what I was expecting he would plan for, so needless to say I was disillusioned. I tried to tell him, talk to him about it, but he was swamped (there is really no excuse for not making time to talk and sort things out, but this was his reality at least) and it never quite happened.

The sum of it is: I gave this a shot, and feel happy I did so. I will not have to live with the “what if”, and I am at peace with my conscious knowing I did all I could to make this work. He, on the other hand, did not live up to his end of the deal. He committed himself to something he then did not do, and to me that is unacceptable. So in my mind (because I haven’t heard a word from him in over two weeks) this is over, and if he knows me as well as I think he does, he also understands there’s no way to go from here.

I’m sadden that it ended like this, and kept on thinking I needed to talk to him to be able to get some closure. But I realized I really don’t. We were close friends once upon a time, and because of it I felt this required a bit more sensitivity and consideration, but those are two things I never got from him. There is no expectation on my part that he will come around, change, or even try to fix this, and I obviously cannot do this by myself. So you see, it is over.

I am determined to be responsible and take care of myself, even if that means protecting me from me, as ridiculous as that may sound. I know that he will repeat the behavior given the chance, and the truth is there never has been any major consequences to his behavior, so why change it, right? This ends here. My friend helped understand that I have idolized C and made him to be, in my mind, something he is not. So I will follow my friend’s suggestion and move into reality, remembering the good parts alongside the bad, and seeing him for what he is, and not what I wish he were.

So I am saying goodbye to what I made him/us to be, to the potential that never was, and to my hopes of better times. I am embracing reality, what is, and moving on, one step at a time. Yes, flexibility is needed, but a little reality doesn’t hurt either.

Goodbye C. Thank you for what we had, but no thank you. I want more.