“Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of reality.” - Bukowski
Well, that about does her, I guess. End of an era.
Two weeks ago right on the button, me and my girlfriend split up due to a harrowing treasure trove of problems and misguided emotions. We had breached the 2 year mark and while many relationships are shot directly in the head, it seems ours died from death by a thousand cuts. I’ve let loose gallons of tears, kept myself up a cluster of nights, drank more alcohol than I can normally endure, unloaded everything to friends and yet, there’s no catharsis in sight. I understand it’ll probably be a while before I’m able to obtain some of that, I’m no fool. Still, excruciating is excruciating, any way you wanna tear it.
I could use this as a soapbox to climb on and verbally rip the character of my ex to shreds, but I’m not going to do that. It just isn’t my style. Basically, the meat of the issue is that she had a more stable career than I did. I was trying everything in my power to get there as well and meet her halfway. She wanted children, us to live together, the whole enchilada. I promised her all these things, but that I needed some time to get everything sorted. She made me feel lower than dirt for being who I am regardless of my efforts. During the last five months, there was nothing underneath my feet except eggshells. Worst of all, she felt justified and satisfied in treating me this way.
On one hand, I can understand her frustrations. Though, I can think of about ten million better ways to handle it than the method she chose, but what do I know? In the end, she felt I was hurting her instead of helping her on this pilgrimage. So here I sit, about 4 shots of Gentleman Jack in… and all I’m going to say is that I was a guy who treated her better than anyone ever had (her verbatim), showed her things she never knew existed (her verbatim) and that I loved her profusely. I always backed her, asked about her day, made her happiness and well-being my ultimate concern. Though all of it was for naught it seems. I’m not perfect, Hell, I’m anything but. I told her this from the genesis of our relationship and it appears that she was stricken with buyer’s remorse deep into it.
So we ended it on mutual terms (her bottling up issues and shoving me away and my jaded irritation of being treated like a leper) and that’s all, folks. Then right as the rain, I got the obligatory “can we still be friends?” crock. Only offer I got.
Love is like any other drug, you stop using and eventually you’re going to have withdrawals. Completely inescapable.
I’m staying as optimistic as I can considering and I’m marching forward just focusing on myself right now. Bettering me and bettering my outlook. There have been some mornings I didn’t want to even get out of bed and some nights where I felt like doing a cannonball off of a cliff, but I know that’s just the angst talking.
Feeling good is my ultimate concern now.
