The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

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I think the thing I really want R. to know, after all these years of quiet, is that I did respect him, after all.

I got to thinking about him, remembered things about him that I liked, wondered again (for the thousandth time) how things were changed between us, how the tarnish crept over things. I blamed him, he blamed me, there was nothing but blame. Maybe it was just a case of time running out, and neither of us wanting to admit it. I don't know. It hurts to speculate, even now.

But, I did think the world of him for so long, still do in some ways. Maybe it's okay that a love affair ends on occasion. Maybe we don't have to hate the person when the dust has cleared. How do you plan a life with someone, live it for years, and then break from one another as though you were merely passing strangers? We all do it, leave the wreckage behind, leave the bodies inside of it. No one looks back. They say it isn't healthy to look back.

I did respect him, though. As a person. As a friend and love. I didn't show it to him, though. I made it seem like I thought he wasn't much of anything, toward the end of it. I made him feel like he wasn't worth more than a half-hearted plea to stay. He knew I didn't want him to. I said it because I felt like he wanted to hear it, because I was afraid to be alone, but I didn't say it because I wanted him to. Now, looking back, the thing that hurts the most is knowing that he believed I didn't care about him. I did. He mattered. He still matters. I was selfish and I was playing at being petulant and desirable. I thought I held all the cards in my hands, and I let him think he had nothing.

I don't hate him. What's to hate? He did the best he could with what he had, and his love was sincere. It was mine that stopped. I was the one whose light went out. I don't hate myself for that, it couldn't have been helped. I am angry with myself for being mean, for pretending I didn't know when I was lying. He deserved more from me. Now that I have some distance from those days, I see that I was only interested in my feelings, that I had stopped caring about his. It's now that I have recurrent visions of him crying in his truck, blindly driving up the highway, that I feel the old me come back, the one who cared about him. I wish there was a way I could reach back and brush those tears away, but to do that would bring on more, some of mine mixed with his.

I look at my selfishness then as a tool. It freed us both from something we didn't understand, that we didn't want to know. It gave us both a chance to reclaim ourselves, to live lives that make sense for who we are, and it numbed the pain of it. He was given the chance to hate me so that he wouldn't miss me, and I was afforded the opportunity to break away from the one person who'd meant everything once, without feeling like a vital organ had been ripped from my body. There are phantom pains now and then, but I didn't feel a thing when it happened.

I do respect him, though. He is a good man. He deserves much more than I gave at the end of it. I'll never be able to tell him that, now. Too many reasons for him not to believe me, not to care. I find myself hoping he doesn't hate me, that he knows I meant it every time I said 'I love you'. I never said that and didn't mean it. I never sunk that low. I said it the last time we spoke, actually. It was cold outside, dark, we were parting for good, and he grabbed me, kissed me hard and told me he loved me. I said I loved him too, sobbing with heartbreak and shame, and I ran from his truck without looking back. I'd meant it. It just wasn't enough, though.

I sometimes wish there weren't such rules, the ones that state you can't know one another when the romance is done. He'd meant enough to me once that I was willing to be his bedmate, his cook, his perennial date, his keeper, his minder, his hand-holder, his audience...now, I'm none of that. I'm nothing. I bristle at the rules and fight the urge to usurp the powers that made them until I realize I could never be his friend now. The rules, they were made by me. I can't see someone else doing my job(s). It would instantly render me obsolete. The distance is what allows me to think there's still a possibility I have some control of things. It lets me believe that he still feels the same as he once did. To see him, thriving, manly and husbandly, with a child and a dog and a smile from ear to ear, would finish the thing for good. My clumsy lies, I told those so I'd not have to witness the death of it all. I let it be my idea, the slow deterioration, and I left the deathbed thinking that the whole scene would go on forever, that I could live the way I wanted and never have to acknowledge it was over.

It's over. The only thing we share between us now is invisible and must not be spoken. It's our four-letter-word. Love. Over. Done. Boom.

He had real value, to me, as a man and as a friend. That doesn't go away. We just can't talk about it, anymore.