MySpace is tired. Most of us have reached maximum friend capacity, we've met all the random people we'd like to meet, and you realize that not too much changes in our lives from day to day. We've all become marvelously connected and realized that much of life is marvelously boring. There's a reason we aren't all famous -- to live for an audience is to have no time to live for yourself. Ergo, I'm moving my blog over here, and eventually my "space" will disappear.
You realize that being connected, however superficially, to people you have disconnected from can reap sad consequences. Living an exposed life leads others to discover things about you that maybe you'd like not to reveal...yet there are others with whom you'd like to share the information.
To cut to the chase, two months ago I disconnected myself from a man who I cared about in a way I'd hesitate to call love, but perhaps was the closest I could come with the emotion I could spare. After all, I had only so much to work with, for he didn't feel the same about me. I knew he didn't, and after too many nights of smiling through slow heartbreak, I finally told him I couldn't be around him anymore, couldn't keep up whatever weird semblance of a relationship that we had.
He told me he couldn't emotionally connect. And even though I'm old and wise enough to have heard the silent "with me," it doesn't make it less painful when it's vocalized...well, vocalized in the insidious MySpace way where the status changes from "Single" to "In a Relationship" roughly two months after the "split."
I shouldn't have known that. I really shouldn't have even checked the profile. But we are curious beings who don't like to let things go.
Long story short, I got it confirmed: it wasn't anything I did, it was just that nothing was "there" for him. It hurts when you don't stir the same emotions in someone that they stir in you. I've been on both sides before. I get where he's at. But it doesn't stop it from hurting like hell. Sure, "closure" gives a sense of finality, but when you acknowledge that yes, This Chapter Is Over, it's depressing.
So with "Cut Off Contact, Round 2" I did what I should have done the first time. I deleted his emails, any past chats, removed him from the Google Chat "Friends" list. My phone is broken so the number is gone anyways. And yes, I took him off of my MySpace friends. This is not out of malice, even anger. This is because I can't keep connected with someone I'm not connected with. At this point, my desire to be emotionally healthy outweighs my curiosity.
Yes, this point -- a point I should have reached a while ago, and as much as I beat myself up for not getting here sooner, it doesn't matter: I'm here. This is the point where I am extremely grateful that God made me a strong person, strong enough to end something that was going nowhere, strong enough to see that now I, who actually had made myself emotionally unavailable, can now free myself to love those who can feel it and internalize it and want to return it.
The phrase "learning experience" is tossed around to try to bring value to the pain we feel, and though it may sometimes seem trite, it's almost always true. And rather than trying to pick apart everything I could have done differently, I can realize the only thing I did wrong was to constantly wonder what I was doing wrong. Yes, I've learned to not settle for semblances, but to embrace what's real. It truly is better to be alone, maybe even lonely, than crying at night hoping for something to change.
And another thing I've learned: not to hide what I feel. So this is why I'm writing, to you, my friends. Though it may be a clunky, even somewhat impersonal mechanism, this is where I am and the way I can truly best express my place.
I am sad, not devastated. I'd already moved on mostly; this is me moving on completely. But most of all, though I've been hurt, I'm already healing. I'll get through the bitterness and move on to a place of optimism and confidence.
I'm self-aware and reflective, to a fault. I pick apart every situation down to the insanest detail, trying to make it make sense to my emotional and logical sides all at once. But sometimes it's simple: it just wasn't meant to be. I couldn't have done anything to change that. And to my nature, being helpless and powerless is sometimes the most hurtful thing of all.
What I'm doing this time, however, is finding the freedom in that. For next time, I'll know what I want, and it certainly won't be emotional uncertainty, or shades of gray. He'll know, and I'll know, and even if it's not forever, it'll be right, and no matter what I "try" to do, he'll just love me. And whether it's for a season or a lifetime, someday I'll learn to love in the healthy way, the right way. The way in which someone loves me too. The way I deserve.
