First, since it has been awhile ... things are good with me. My 18 month old daughter is (while spirited) delightful, I'm about to buy a house (hopefully I'll eventually get a loan despite that my credit isn't as great as it could be because I am bad about opening mail), and I have been loving my job for over 4 years now and am about to go on two international business trips. I am happy.
The only time I think about this blog is when I think of texting guy. I have been thinking about texting guy more than usual lately. Something really awful happened in his life and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind, and I just feel completely and totally wrong that I didn't do more, heartbroken for him, helpless. The reason I didn't do anything (other than a very carefully worded email) was mostly because I was paralyzed... and thinking that it would be completely and totally wrong TO do more.
I care about him so much, and I just feel like something is so wrong and off that he is not in my life at all, that I found out about his recent tragedy through a mutual friend... it's just an awful, horrible feeling that I can't describe. I wonder if he knows I had a breakdown and went to the psych ward in December. I wonder if our mutual friend told him that, or if he hears about me from her. I always tell her not to tell me about him, because it's still, over two years later, too difficult for me to talk about him casually. I still have a mini-panic-attack on the rare occasion I get a text from a friend "hey does [textingguy] live near the post office on [streetname]? I think I just ran into him"
He used to tell me I was his salve, and I didn't even know what that word meant the first time he used it. At least some part of my brain rejected that (and told him so), saying that no, some unhealthy part of both of us magnetically connected in an unhealthy way, and that "salve" feeling was just a drug addiction that we both needed to resist. But when I imagine him in pain over something it just kills me to think that I could have helped and didn't. At the same time, I never did help him. I always hurt him. And he hurt me too.
I don't even remember our last interaction well, but my best recollection is that he found some peace with me getting engaged but needed me to leave him alone. So, I did, and am still leaving him alone. I can't remember if there was ever anything beyond that, or even if that is really true. Sometimes I think, it's been long enough, we should be able to be normal and it should be okay, and then I think... I can't even imagine being normal with him, and I'm not even sure I want to be, so where does that leave things?
Once or twice when we were on a "no contact" period I would drive into his complex and just look at his window. He saw me do this once, so (even though I don't have that car anymore) I'm too scared to do it now - both for that reason and because I just cannot even crack open that door.
I have resigned myself to the fact that texting guy is going to haunt me forever, and that I am always going to be a little bit in love with him, and that that is okay. It doesn't mean I love my husband less, and honestly if there is anyone in the whole world who understands this and is not threatened by it, it's my husband.
But the dreams have gotten more frequent and more intense and I don't know if they mean that something bigger is wrong, that I have veered off an important path. These are things I will never know.
No comments:
Post a Comment