knowing doesn’t always make it easier

I struggled to fall asleep until about 2:30 this morning. I’m usually out cold the minute my head hits the pillow. And once I’m out I don’t wake up for anything. But last night was different. To make matters worse I’d scheduled an 8 am appointment with Alex, so I had to get up earlier than normal.
I was sleeping so well, think I must’ve been having some good dreams. Suddenly I jumped out of bed and looked at the clock…7:50. Oh crap. Luckily his office is pretty close to home (15 minutes), so I knew I could still get there. I didn’t have time to shower or anything. I slapped on some makeup as fast as I could, didn’t even iron my shirt, hair in a ponytail, threw on some flip-flops and out the door. I was 15 minutes late. Damn, damn, damn. I needed those 15 minutes with him today.
I usually sit in Alex’s office glancing at the clock. I feel like there’s so much I need to talk to him about, but he’s spending an appropriate amount talking about each one, which means it leaves little room for more than 2 mini-topics per session. I hate that. I feel like I need an all day session or something. I guess that’s why he’s encouraging me to go to the fucking meetings.
I didn’t even have a chance to talk about Kwame, but now I’m glad I didn’t waste any of my valuable time or money on that. Instead Alex encouraged me to talk to M to get closure. I couldn’t get past the fact that I really didn’t know the *reason* he’d left, and I needed it so that I could accept and move on. Instead I was dwelling so much that I was practically digging for shit to blame it on.
So I talked to M this morning via IM. He was terribly cold and almost mean at first. Like why the hell are you talking to me after what you said last week. I just told him I needed to talk to him, and he eventually opened up. I apologized for the things I said that hurt him, and he told me that the reason he left was I changed. His exact words, just so I don’t have to interpret, were “honestly, you made me feel bad about myself. the constant complaining. nothing i was doing was good enough for u. and i was becoming unhappy”
Ouch.
Ok, so I know now. And I agree. I changed. I was protecting myself from being hurt by him. If I caused him to hate me then I could always know that it wasn’t ME he was rejecting. Somehow I never felt like I was good enough for M. I don’t know why. We were great together. But there was a fear there that I couldn’t explain. Possibly because I was his first relationship, his only relationship. I feared he’d eventually need to experience something that wasn’t me.
I also changed because I’d met someone who changed my life in ways I can’t even explain. It was like he was already (in some ways) how I envisioned myself inside. He explained thoughts I’d had and helped me develop them into beliefs without even knowing he was doing it. He opened my eyes to things I hadn’t thought of or experienced. And the best part about it was I met him when I was totally comfortable with myself and I never wavered from that. I let the real me show and I liked it. It felt good.
When M came back that was the person he was getting to know. He had every right to expect that I would be that way once my love was back in my life. But somehow it didn’t feel like that. At first I was embarrassed. People said things to me at work, passed judgment, hurt my feelings. My friends supported me, but for some reason it just didn’t feel right.
I remember one night only a few weeks after he came back. We were lying in bed and he told me he thought I’d lost my passion. And all I could think right then was that I didn’t lose my passion, he just wasn’t it anymore. I’d leaned something of myself that made me think that my passion lied elsewhere. The truth was all along M was my passion, he was my true love, he was my soul mate, and I was too afraid to just let it be, to be free with me.
I numbed myself every single day from the time he came back till about 2 weeks ago. All in all about 9 months. It was so much easier to smoke and kiss him and forget all about the real things going on in my head. I covered them up and ignored them, but they just sat back there, pulling me down.
He bought the laptop for me for my birthday because he knew I wanted to write. He knew that was one of my passions, and he was trying to help me get it back. And for the first 4 months all I did was shop online. I bought things for the house and clothes and looked at houses and baby stuff. When we decided to have a baby I was so excited I just trapped myself in my little world on the couch with my laptop looking at message boards about trying to conceive. I was afraid it was going to be difficult, so I let it consume me…to the point of not sleeping with him anymore. It was like I was saving it up. And this was only February.
In the meantime I picked at everything. The dishes were never clean enough, he was sending too much money home to his family, why didn’t he start his MBA now instead of waiting, why was he wearing that outside the house, don’t talk like that, don’t be like that, blah blah blah. I was horrible to live with.
So I guess I can’t blame him for leaving. I still in my heart believe that he should have given it a little more effort instead of bolting so quickly, but I also can’t imagine how it must feel to see that your wife is bubbling over with happiness until the day you walk back in her life and then suddenly she can’t even pretend like she’s happy. Sad shit.
I’m not blaming myself at this very moment either. I don’t think it will help anything. I have to face reality and get on with this. I can’t dwell on what could have been or will he come back or why can’t we just be together forever anymore. I just can’t do that to myself.
My friends have been so excellent, and I’m thankful that none of them have gotten so sick of hearing about this that they’ve disappeared. Fine group of people y’all are!