i wanted to write about Paul. as much as it shouldn’t get to me, it does. hell, it’s been over a year, and a lot has happened since then, and i should be over it. i’ll be exceedingly honest here, so stop reading if you don’t want to watch me berate myself for past decisions. having said that, though, you’ll probably want to read more, ah well. your choice. i did warn you though.
i feel guilty. yes, guilty. and yes, it deserves italics. it’s not a pleasant emotion to deal with at the best of times, but when it’s a year old, it’s stale and festering. it lingers at the back of your mind. every time you find something that reminds you of it, it anchors itself even more. it rises to the surface, then drives itself further into your heart.
i hurt him. i know that. but i felt that there was nothing more that i could do to ‘save’ the relationship. i had one of those long, slow realisations, about ‘us’. we didn’t work. he wanted a major commitment, and i saw it as something casual. he’d get upset, and hurt, when i went out with my friends (“you should have called me, i would have taken you insert place/activity/event.. we could have gone together”). our attitudes towards the notion of what constitutes a relationship were so far apart.
so while i was away, i didn’t miss him. at all. actually, i thought about him once, in the two weeks i was away. how cold is that? that’s almost emotionally void. i knew it was over. it was just a matter of making it happen. that, was the hard part.
when i got back, he was overjoyed to see me. he actually cried when he met me at the airport. i was almost sickened by the sight of that reaction, because i knew that all of that emotion, was pointless, because i felt it was already over. but did i say anything there and then? no. stupid here, let it drag on for another week, while i tried to find a way to say “i don’t love you anymore, and i’m not sure i ever did”, that wouldn’t shatter his existence. i couldn’t find the words.
i immerse myself in words. words are a specialty of mine, in an academic/artistic sense. the subtleties of language, creating ‘a language’ of my own (in a sense) to get words to say what i want, and yet, leave things open, unstable, uncertain. but that was the problem, i had to get a very specific message across.
so i have this guilt, over my failure to communicate my feelings at the proper time.. or ‘lack of feelings’ i should say. and that failure to communicate, kept him hanging on. he kept calling, asking if there was a way to work things out, asking why it happened, why i just ‘changed my mind,’ seemingly over night. i had no words to explain it, except that i had already ‘explained’ it, as best i could. even now, the only explanation i can come up with, is that i just knew that there was no way it would work. there was no compromise i was willing to make. stubbornly independent. in a way that hurt someone, that didn’t deserve it.