The one that got away and the wound that lingers

[once removed]

ive written about this a few times before.

when i was 18, i got into a relationship with a girl (not the uBPD that brought me here, although in retrospect, there were some light BPD traits).

before her, i was in an on again, off again relationship with a girl for a couple of years. she was bad news. the relationship was bad news. i was always in a bad place, and acted like a wounded puppy. things finally came to a head at the end of junior year, and we broke up on bad terms, completely cut off contact.

i feel that after some months of pretty deep loneliness and isolation, i fully grieved it. i moved on to better things. that summer was full of good times, i met and spent it with good new people, and it was one of the best summers of my life. i went into my senior year in a much better place. i had a sense of confidence and happiness that i hadnt had in many years, if at all. i would never again recognize or relate to that old version of myself.

and i met a new girl, and eventually we got together.

the short version (full story here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=330172.0) is that we were together for about three months. in a lot of ways, at least outwardly, she was a "nice girl", something the ex before her wasnt. she was really into me, whereas the ex before her would tear me down. i had some walls up for a while (she kinda over pursued and idealized me, and also wanted to spend more time together than i did), but i dropped them, and really embraced her and the relationship.

toward the last month and a half, she started, on and off, to pull away. there were a lot of things at play. she had an unresolved previous relationship, and the guy was always trying to get back in the picture. her friends and family put pressure on her to get back with him. in retrospect, i was comfortable with our routine, and she wasnt; she was bored. she was looking for me to have my life a little more together...i didnt have a drivers license, and she did (i got it while we were together). she pulled further and further away from me, started spending more time with the ex, and eventually, after what seemed like an upswing in our relationship, dumped me, then later got back together with him. more than likely, she cheated on me with him.

i cant really overstate what a tailspin this sent me into.

i couldnt cope. i started taking too much benadryl to knock myself out in order to sleep. i started to let hygiene go from lack of sleep and depression. i started skipping school which i had never done. i skipped something like 12-14 days in the last couple of months of my senior year, and to this day i dont know how i got away with it.

before i even knew she and her ex had gotten back together (they didnt, officially, for around a month), i really wore all of this on my sleeve. her and i went to see CATS a couple of days after we broke up (we still had tickets, and in retrospect, what a horrible idea), and i cried like a baby the entire time. i left her a rose on valentines day that she had no idea what to do with. finally i took the advice of friends, and stopped over pursuing, pulled away, but when she wasnt reaching out to me, it was killing me.

finding out she had gotten back with him really tore me up, and i knew it was over, and i knew what i had to do.

i only saw her once more after that. the two of us had exchanged a spiral of letters, mostly love letters, since a little bit before we got together, that we continued after we broke up. i went to her house to pick it up. i think she wanted to chat, but i got out of there quickly.

the last entries in it were her telling me to please not forget her, promises that when she went off to college shed come home and come to my bands shows, and asking me to start meeting her again after classes. quoting songs we had shared (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m798LeqV3rQ)

i graduated high school and just kind of collapsed at the finish line. i actually had in school suspension over facial hair on the final day. i didnt say goodbye or see you later to anyone. i just kind of limped home.

and i never really recovered. i got deep into benadryl abuse. i developed, seemingly over night, serious social anxiety. i didnt really go anywhere...yeah, eventually i got a job, and i went to community college, but i didnt have any plan or vision for my life.

here i sit, 15 years later, in an entry level job, without having finished school, and living with my mom. my life long best friends and i dont speak often.

why am i writing about this here and now?

even long after this ex and i broke up, i would have intense dreams about her that would haunt me. they usually revolved around me chasing her through the dream. she would become increasingly elusive, id be trying to find her, talk to her, and shed be harder to find. i would feel this powerful, overwhelming sense of need to contact her, to tell her how i felt, that would linger for hours after i woke up.

i wrote about it here around two years ago, (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=310160.0), and got some good, insightful feedback. the dreams actually stopped. but i just woke up from one a couple of hours ago, and here i sit in the middle of the night with the afterglow.

by this point, i dont remember much of it, at least not enough to describe, except that it was the same old dynamic...me trying to get close to her, her becoming increasingly elusive.

intellectually, and emotionally, i completely get why we broke up, and even, why she broke up with me. it causes me no pain to see or to admit. a lot of it is on me. she had her life on the ball more than i did; she still does, and we were going in different directions. she couldnt see a future between us...there wasnt a future between us. a lot of it is on external forces. her friends and family were really loyal to her ex, i never knew them, he was ever present, and i know that unresolved previous relationships will often win the day. plenty is on her. i seem to have her on this pedestal, because of the sense of rejection i felt and feel, but at the end of the day, this wasnt the girl for me. i wasnt into her kind of dorky, over the top, happy go luckiness. i wasnt into her over the top, dramatic, artsy depressiveness. we were never as close as i thought. she was a lousy communicator, and frankly selfish. she had a history of cheating, and she had a darker side to her that i would only fully realize months after we broke up. and when i say that, dont get me wrong, i dont mean to completely downplay the real compatibilities we had, the things i found so charming about her, or the bond we had. but i dont, in my waking life, ever miss her.

ive learned a lot here in my time at BPDFamily. ive learned to understand where an ex was coming from during the course of a relationship and its breakup. ive learned to measure short term intensity with a grain of salt. the relationship was a mere three months, the point at which the vast majority of relationships die for these reasons. i feel like ive achieved all of that, and in my waking life, long sense let it go.

ive also learned that if we let them, deep wounds like rejection and abandonment can linger and affect us far after time dulls the pain.

i remember everything. everything. the entire trajectory of our relationship. when she made the first move while we watched a movie (end of days) and we cuddled. when she showed up at my door looking extra cute, and a few minutes later, i kissed her lying together in my bed; our first kiss, and how she hugged me and trembled. i remember the song that was playing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG5zRt-sNWE). the night we spent at the fair. the afternoon we spent at her place, when she told me she liked how i looked at her, that i looked at her like she was pretty. when she pushed me to come meet her at work, and how she was all over me. the halloween party we threw together when she cornered me in my bedroom and told me i should take advantage of her. when my cat, my first pet died, and i cried in front of her, and she comforted me. the gift she gave (made) me to cheer me up. the heartfelt adorable letter she gave me on my birthday when she made clear she wanted to be exclusive. the time i watched her ballet performance (nutcracker). the first time she came to my bands show and started openly making out with me afterward. the things that we said in the spirals we shared. and all of the bad. the overwhelming anxiety i felt when she pulled away. the frustration and knowing sense i felt that i ought to break up with her when id catch her ignoring me and cancelling plans with me to hang out with the ex. how disastrous our first date night when i got my license was. the new years break when she had her wisdom teeth out, and i wanted to be with her, and she wouldnt even respond to me, and i just tried to drown it all out with video games, and found out she was spending it all with the ex. how we tried a couples date with one of my best friends, and they had a wonderful time, and we fought the whole time. how we had plans and i never heard from her all day, and my friend drove me over there to check on her, only to find out she was hanging out with the ex. the hilarious story about how she and her ex showed up at my friends work (braums), and my friend was a total  to her ex, refusing to refill his coke and crumbling it and throwing it in the trash. i remember the song i listened to, obsessively, when i noticed and felt this ever growing distance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJQYoGyEtDs). i remember, vividly, the absolute cold isolation as fall became winter.

i remember the night my band spent recording what would become one of our most important songs and best recordings. i remember calling her and getting no answer, and drinking a heineken, and thinking it was disgusting. i remember how much she liked the song, and would quote it often, before and after we broke up. "some day ill die, but not just yet. i hope that girl wont forget my name".

i remember things, even to the exact date.

these things, 15 years later, are so vividly in my mind, and, to this day, pain me to think of. by comparison, the ex that brought me here and i were together for three years, it was one of the hardest (top two) things i ever went through, and while i have more than my share of memories (at 21, it was my first real, adult relationship), none are so vivid, and to reflect on them doesnt cause me an ounce of pain.

i also know that at the end of the day, this is not all about her. it has little to do with her, personally. if i wanted to contact her, i could, and i could have years ago.

i still remember that summer, before i met her, very vividly too. i had never had so many people, so much going on, in my life. so many late nights, and good times. a number of them girls that were into me.

and ive never had it since.

as a group, we inevitably faded apart, for the most part but not completely, by the time school started.

a part of me remained attached to all of them. after the breakup with my ex, when i started this mental and physical decline, i told myself id get it together, rekindle things with them, but i never did. time kept ticking. a few years later, im sure none of them even really remembered me. but i kept up with them on social media, and i remembered them.

and when i say i never recovered, thats what i mean. its as if at that age of 18, i hit my peak, felt on top of the world, and then, where for most of us life totally changes and we become engrossed in the adult responsibilities that meet us, i shirked, and hid, and languished.

and i did that because whatever i realize emotionally and intellectually now, that relationship and its ending were seemingly the manifestation of my greatest fears, insecurities, and vulnerabilities. i met a better gal who was really into me, and (it felt like) the closer i got to her, the more she pulled away, and that meant, in spite of whatever healing work ive done since, that somewhere deep down im unloveable and rejectable. and the good folks i met at the time and before it, that moved on their lives, mean im forgettable. and here i am, stuck in that past.

my question BPDFamily, and i thank you if youve stuck with me, is how do i move past that last hurdle? how do i move past what i know, and accept, intellectually and emotionally, let it go, and stop letting it weigh me down 15 years later? how do i finally let go of the past and move on?

[Woolspinner2000]

Hey OR, 

Thank you for sharing what's on your heart and mind. There's a lot going on inside of you! It's good to have a safe place here.

I don't know that I have answers, but I do have a few thoughts. I wondered if you know what some of the needs were of the 18 year old OR? Perhaps you are still seeking to have those needs met, the deeper needs that you mention noting must've been present.

...and the good folks i met at the time and before it, that moved on their lives, mean im forgettable. and here i am, stuck in that past.

This says to me the opposite, that you really want to be remembered. There's a great need for you to be seen for who you are.

I see you, OR, from my woolie perspective. 
Here at BPDFamily, you are very well accepted and remembered.

 
Wools

[khibomsis]

Dear OR, you are my hero! Your Zen approach to life has been so helpful to me so many times, I am fond of quoting you in my responses, so much so that sometimes I hold back lest I bore everybody.

I am filled with compassion to hear your story, you come across as a nice guy up against something that was bigger than he was at the time. You are much wiser now. What I am also hearing are the many losses you suffered from your grief, that is, it was not just the loss of the woman but so many other losses consequent on it that are causing you pain in the present.

I'm with Wools that you may be struggling with unmet needs in the present and that is why the past won't stop hurting.  A little radical acceptance maybe? It was what it was and all the ruminating in the world won't change the past. What will you do to change your future?

Possibly you don't show people off this board what a great guy you are. If so, could it be your subconscious is tired of not being your authentic self?

As for the job, through recovering from concussion (my brain couldn't function right) the past two years I have gone from very cushy middleclass jobs to doing what other people would consider rather menial tasks. I was glad of the work, it fed me while my head recovered, and through it I have found a whole new  path in life. Different strokes for different folks, but my take is that as long as I am not doing crime (or politics  ) every job is an honest job.

We are here for you the same way you have been present for so many.

Big  ,
Khib

[once removed]

thank you wools!

dreams are really something.

last night when i wrote that i was in such a needy, and vulnerable, and pained place.

today, im like "ex who?". it still surprises me, and ive had a million of these dreams over fifteen years, the powerful emotions they evoke afterward, when otherwise, its so distant.

I wondered if you know what some of the needs were of the 18 year old OR? Perhaps you are still seeking to have those needs met, the deeper needs that you mention noting must've been present.

this is really insightful Wools.

i think the first thing that comes to mind is that 18 year old OR wasnt yet an adult. he didnt have much of a vision for his life. he wanted to be a rockstar, but barring that (given its statistical unlikelihood), he didnt really know. its like he just stopped growing...just assumed that things would take a natural course. and frankly, lacked self efficacy. and that hasnt much changed.

of course that isnt how i imagined it when i was younger. i imagined id go off to college. get a job and a place. be somebody, do something. i never took that initiative.

i guess on some level, i havent really figured out what his needs were, or mine are.

your question gets me wondering if the dreams are some sort of a manifestation of that. that maybe theyre less about her, but more a manifestation of anxiety that im not where i want to be.

its hard to say. was i afraid of all of that when the dreams started fifteen years ago? im not sure. it seems to me the dreams reflected the way i really felt at the time...she was fading away, and the loss of her, the gradual distance, pained me a lot. it was an exaggerated, slightly surrealistic version of what i was really going through.

but then again, as i said, that time was kind of a peak. so maybe the theory fits. that was where i wanted to be, and that fell apart, and i never figured out what came next.

the other answer is more obvious. i learned that after the relationship that did bring me here.

i had an above average need to be mirrored and idealized. we all want to be acknowledged and loved for what we think are our best qualities. to be "gotten", to be understood. at a less healthy level though, a person will struggle when that image isnt held up. they dont see themselves so clearly, either.

so the gal that was bad news, did that intermittently. and i chased it like a drug, and i was such a wounded puppy when she was the nightmare of a person that she still is. and then i meet the girl, the main subject of this thread, and its different. she had her issues, but was outwardly nowhere near the toxic human being the other girl was. she worked really hard at being a good girlfriend. she was loving. so it was kind of night and day, except that she too, really honed in on those things about me, was attracted to, praised, idealized, all that stuff i wanted badly to be understood about me and loved for.

and once i dropped my walls, i invested hard in that. so to be broken up with, the message it sent to me was that i wasnt actually good enough. that just like that, those things about me that meant so much to her could be forgotten, werent important.

or, if they were actually important, there must be something else about me, something deep down wrong with me, that if a girl got too close to me, would overshadow the rest.

but thats the beauty of what i learned here, the healing work that i have done.

today i see that it has nothing to do with some "wrong" thing with me deep down that repels people. today i see that a wounded puppy chasing scraps isnt attractive to anyone. today i see that we all idealize new romantic partners, and overstate our emotions and attraction, and then come back to earth, and shift to a new phase in a relationship.

today i can see "i said or did unattractive things, or i played a role in my relationship breaking down" without that meaning "im some deeply flawed and unloveable person".

that helped me, even years later, understand what happened intellectually, and in a lot of ways, that helped me emotionally. i just wonder, fear, that the wound went deep, and left a scar, and logistically, how does one go about healing that? and something that is now almost half my life ago.

This says to me the opposite, that you really want to be remembered. There's a great need for you to be seen for who you are.

its true. i want to make a mark. and i do want people to see me, get me, like me.

I see you, OR, from my woolie perspective.  
Here at BPDFamily, you are very well accepted and remembered.

thank you Wools  

[once removed]

Dear OR, you are my hero! Your Zen approach to life has been so helpful to me so many times, I am fond of quoting you in my responses, so much so that sometimes I hold back lest I bore everybody.

i really appreciate that, khibomsis.

this place, and the people here, changed my life. i learned from them, and i try to pay it forward. there is so much opportunity to better ones life that this place offers.

You are much wiser now.

thank you for saying so.

i struggle, on some level, with all of the same things, the insecurities, the (fragile) ego, the anxieties, and it doesnt even take much to put me in that place, but for gods sake, i am not the king of chasing, over pursuing, and wearing my heart on my sleeve that i was, and damn it, that has to count for something.

A little radical acceptance maybe? It was what it was and all the ruminating in the world won't change the past. What will you do to change your future?

i think im mostly there on the first part. it was such a long time ago, literally almost half of my life ago, and that time is long gone.

i dont know the answer to the last part. i got that job a few months ago. i tentatively plan to step toward a new job in three months or so.

by tentatively, mind you, i mean two things: im open to the idea that in a few months i may want to stick around, though its not a career path i want to pursue, specifically, so i dont necessarily want to move up. the other thing is that i need to find something that pays about as well or better and that could take some searching.

i intend to go back to school and finish.

the thing is, when i got this job, i went through unbelievable, incredible levels of anxiety; i cant even tell you why, exactly, but i was practically sick with it, and it was constant and obsessive, even on my days off. it occurred to me though, that as much of a toll it took on me, it was something i needed to endure and emerge from.

around the three month mark, i turned a corner and started to; im not a basket case about it anymore. its been really good for me, built confidence, socialized me a lot. so while i have my eyes down the line on bigger things, i want to play it out a bit more for a time.

If so, could it be your subconscious is tired of not being your authentic self?

very, very much so. you nailed it. in public im really hard to get to know. people have told me they find me very reserved and withdrawn. i long, deeply long, to be more connected to others, but i feel stifled in my own skin.

As for the job, through recovering from concussion (my brain couldn't function right) the past two years I have gone from very cushy middleclass jobs to doing what other people would consider rather menial tasks.

im sorry to hear that khib, i imagine that would take a considerable toll! i admire your attitude.

every job is an honest job.

and in so many ways, any one of them can be an opportunity we cant even anticipate.

We are here for you the same way you have been present for so many.

thank you 

[Skip]

You may not just be grieving the girl, but rather high's of that time. Graduating from high school is this unusual time where a group of people randomly thrown together suddenly gel as a group. It's quite a unique thing.

And it's a rite of passage - a ceremony or ritual when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of position in society.

It's a time that is forever lost to us as we grow older.

Think about all the members here who have reached back to recapture that time - classmate.com affairs - and how devastated they are when those relationships tank.

You haven't found your self yet in this new society. You have to keep looking - reaching. It will come.

[khibomsis]

OR, I am going through much the same thing. Caring for myself and resolving my co-dependency is coming to involve going back to childhood growth that was stunted and regrowing myself from that point. Hoping to become an adult before I die 

It takes so much energy some days I just drag myself through work.

Thanks for the kind words! To be honest, there is a gift in surviving a near-death experience. I wake up every morning with a joy at not being dead. Alive is good, a fresh day to do better, to be more, to heal those childhood wounds and start living for real.

I wish you that joy.

 
Khib

[Cat Familiar]

I echo Skip’s thoughts. What an incredible time high school is! And likely most of us don’t realize how unique and ephemeral those few years are.

Everybody is single, probably the most attractive version of themselves they’ll ever be, with endless possibilities for the future.

Never again do you get to participate in a dating pool so wide and deep. And there’s all this free time and group activities.

I was too lost in my own shyness to fully grasp what a wonderful time this was.


 

[once removed]

You may not just be grieving the girl, but rather high's of that time.

it seems so obvious reading it.

i was talking with one of my best friends since middle school recently. i dont remember how we got on the subject, but he confided in me that after he graduated high school, he had been suicidal. we talked about how high school gives you a sense of structure, normalcy, routine, even identity...and then it goes away and some people dont know what to do, or who they are. he said that was exactly it.

its funny, because there werent, for me, a lot of highs in high school. i was always depressed over or obsessing about some girl. i ended up one of the lowest in my class, which was brutal for my self esteem. i was always badly sleep deprived.

but that summer before senior year was special to me, and i felt that i was coming into my own. every night was a blast, and going into senior year i never had so much confidence.

You haven't found your self yet in this new society.

no. i havent. at thirty   three i still havent. but reading that, it makes some sense as to why im still holding on.

You have to keep looking - reaching. It will come.

thank you for saying so. it gives me faith.

involve going back to childhood growth that was stunted and regrowing myself from that point. Hoping to become an adult before I die  Laugh out loud (click to insert in post)

i think thats how i feel...stunted. stuck at that age, that time, in many ways.

it gives me some comfort, i think "hoping to become an adult before i die" is how so many people feel; i hear it from my peers all the time. but the amount of time i feel ive lost, and the amount of time i have left to get things a bit more together, weigh on me a lot. 15 years have flown by. i dont want to be in this spot when im 40.

I was too lost in my own shyness to fully grasp what a wonderful time this was.

oh heavens does this weigh on me too.

there was so much that i missed out on because i was busy being depressed or obsessing over some girl.

What an incredible time high school is!

i confess though, most of my peers seem to speak of high school the same way i would of elementary school, like this ancient history that most of them barely remember. im a little self conscious about that. they cherish the time. im still stuck in it.

its as if i want a do over, more than i want to move on.

[once removed]

this has really been weighing on me.

ordinarily, i have one of these dreams when i do, and in a few hours, it feels very far away, and i can no longer relate to it, until the next time it happens.

i deliberated on my response to your thoughtful replies...edited it down some, because i was repeating some things from my OP, and then my hard drive crashed and i lost all of any of what i wanted to say.

i chatted with my mom about it the other night. im paraphrasing, but her position was kind of, "sometimes we have these dark periods that pain us, and sometimes they stick with us."

BPDFamily, i dont want this to be such a thing. objectively, it is not so significant that it should be such a thing. it embarrasses me that even occasionally im hung up on a three month relationship fifteen years later. i want to beat this.

i have beaten worse.

the relationship that brought me here was just shy of three years long. i havent forgotten it. it was my first adult relationship. hundreds, if not thousands of memories. so many unique "firsts". but not one memory, even if i sit here and try (and i have tried) conjures up one bit of feeling of pain or loss. i smile about the good times. i say "i sure dont miss that" at the bad. i fully grieved it. it was maybe the second time in my life that ive done so.

the first was that nightmare relationship i mentioned, the one where i was like a wounded puppy always begging for scraps.

tonight while i was working i pulled out an album that came out at the time the subject of the OP and i got together - green days american idiot. not a huge green day fan, but i was of that album. i listened to it a lot when we got together. and i listened to it a lot when we broke up.

its largely a pretty political album. to me, its always represented less about that, more about an urgency of the time. there are also plenty of homages to broken relationships. personal struggles.

ive avoided it because of what it conjures up. but i went straight there tonight, and it conjured up the same things that it did, on about the same level that it did, say 13-14, years ago, or even 10 or 8. this urgent time in my life. this loss.

its all so vivid. it mystifies me.

how is it that i can learn these lessons about detaching and grieving, apply them, and beat one of the hardest things that ever happened to me...and that i can even apply them retroactively, understand why the subject of the post and i broke up, understand exactly why i think it hurt so much, but that the wound still lingers?

i trusted her and gave of myself in a vulnerable way, and she abandoned me. what i didnt realize at the time, is that that is what a breakup is. i realize it now. i have realized that for a pretty long time. relationships end for reasons, i know what those reasons were, and what doesnt cause me pain is to realize what those reasons were.

except that maybe there is some regret. with the ex that brought me here, i didnt wear my heart on my sleeve. she was never privy to anything i went through. i looked strong. the subject of this thread saw me at my neediest...my heart on my sleeviest. that burns a bit even today.

i doubt that she has forgotten me completely...i was her second to last boyfriend before she was married. but i doubt she remembers any of that heart/sleeve stuff (i doubt she remembers much of anything specifically). but i do, and i could kick myself. and as i mentioned, theres a part of me that badly wants a do over. nay, my dreams would suggest i still want her to fix it.

im afraid of the idea that this will haunt me any longer. i need to let it go, to move on, for it to become less significant in my mind. and i wonder:

You haven't found your self yet in this new society.

is this it? is moving on about literally moving on? does the memory, the loss, become less significant as a result of making new, more important, more significant memories? because it makes a lot of sense that it would.

part of it, i think, is that the idealization of the subject of this post mattered more to me, at that particular time in my life. and on no level did i want for that relationship to end.

dont get me wrong. regarding the ex that brought me here, ask anyone i know, i was outwardly far more of a basket case. i have had people tell me that they legitimately worried if id ever recover. the dynamics, our loaded bond, the narcissistic/rejection wound i experienced was profound.

but things were always so extreme. i knew that i wasnt the greatest most wonderful person in the world, or the worst, most horrible   hole that ever existed.

i didnt really respect her or believe in what she said. and in retrospect, that was even part of the wound (to be dumped by someone you feel needs and depends on you). i felt superior. i didnt feel we were intellectual equals.

i did, with the subject of this thread. we werent a perfect match, but we complimented each other in a lot of ways. it was stimulating. we brought out good things in each other.

there were so many times i wanted, tried, to break up with the ex that brought me here. i was more than a little bit wounded that she was ultimately the one to do it. on the other hand, i always considered that maybe it worked out for the best that it happened the way it did. maybe in that circumstance she was better able to cope, and i was, ultimately, able to cope.

i regret that i didnt break up with the subject of this thread. in fact, i regret that i got with her when i saw the signs of the unresolved previous relationship, before we even got together. i regret that i didnt break up with her when it threatened our relationship halfway in. i regret that the night that i expressed my concern to her, that i feared she would dump me and get back with him (which is exactly what happened) and she told me she couldnt rule it out, that i didnt say what the hell am i doing, and end it.

and its not lost on me that some of that is just prudence, things i like to think id act on today, and some of it is just about ego and wishing id beaten her to the punch.

the night we had our first kiss, she asked me "will you keep me?". at the time, i thought it was cute, and i also thought it was dramatic and showy. like, is she a foster dog? this was kind of a pattern of hers. i read a published article about her marriage, and there was this stuff about how her proposing was this gender role bucking thing. nonsense. she did the same   in her relationship before me.

the next day she was kind of freaked out and wanted to dial things back. the truth, as i know it now, and probably on some level knew it then, was that she was afraid of her ex and her friends finding out. for better or worse, i pretty much told her i was only interested in being exclusive, not in this term limited sort of thing. and from then on, she pursued me hard.

i was a little uncomfortable with it. she wanted to spend more time together than i did...and that, frankly, was a weird/new thing for me. she spoke about me in over the top terms that caused me to laugh out loud "i want to run barefoot through your mind!". it wasnt long in our relationship before she started hinting at being in love with me, and i knew i wasnt, with her. when we first kissed, she had such an odd reaction, this extreme trembling and hugging me tightly that went on for some time, and i didnt know what to do besides hug her back. there was one day that we were together, where we were cuddling, and i was uncomfortable; she was looking at me, saying these things about how happy she was, but her eyes were glazed over, empty, nobody home. but at some point, i decided whether or not some of it made me cringe, this chick was into me, and i was into her, and i let my guard down.

it isnt that different from the trajectory of the ex that brought me here. she over pursued, wanted to be around me more than i did her, said and made dramatic overtures, said she loved me first, and, also, appeared with eyes glazed over while saying it all. but maybe i never quite let my guard down in the same way. i was 21, not 18.

and years later, i would learn to realize the effect that idealization has on me, and i would learn to let go of the words that were spoken. the good, and the bad.

and i guess the difference is i think ive done that intellectually, but not emotionally. i let my guard down (i keep using that phrase, and the point i want to make is not that you should keep your guard up in relationships) and i invested in it, and i felt it back...and perhaps not because, but the fact that it happened to coincide with, by the time i did, she was starting to check out. and i know i have not, to this day, let go of all the things that were said.

Thought I ran into you down on the street
Then it turned out to only be a dream
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I remember the face
But I can't recall the name
Now I wonder how whatsername has been

Seems that she disappeared without a trace
Did she ever marry old what's his face
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I remember the face
But I can't recall the name
Now I wonder how whatsername has been

Remember, whatever
It seems like forever to go
Remember, whatever
It seems like forever ago
The regrets are useless in my mind
She's in my head
I must confess
The regrets are useless in my mind
She's in my head
So long ago

And in the darkest night
If my memory serves me right
I'll never turn back time
Forgetting you, but not the time