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Oct. 23rd, 2003 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseI just read my ex's blog (we'll call her Elise) for the first time. She's decided (if that's not the politically correct term, apologies) she's a transsexual, and is currently in college and undergoing hormone therapy, which she seems happy about. I'm happy for her.
Okay, well, the truth is, I'm not happy for her. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she's doing well, but reading about her life has suddenly brought back all the mixed emotions that I've always had about her. I don't really know why, since her life is nothing like it was when we were together (for one thing, she's posing as a male and going by another name), but while reading I still got that clutching feeling in my chest that I've had around her since, well...since we broke up. Over two years ago.
I'm still not sure why, exactly, I have such a strong reaction to her. For someone like me, who values their cloak of apathy, it's rather distressing. I found Elise enormously attractive once. Of course, that's before she shaved off all her hair, but still...I thought she was beautiful. I called her Snow White more than once. We once spent five hours (from 9 PM to 2 AM) making love under the Arctic sun. She was there at my graduation from high school. I was infatuated with her.
And then, as things wound down...I hurt her. Just as I've hurt almost everyone I come into close contact with (which is why I tend to keep the world at a distance when I can). I didn't know how to deal with the fact that I no longer wanted to keep up the relationship, that I was attracted to Ian - her best friend! ah, patterns - and so I just started avoiding her. Not all at once, but gradually, I cut off contact. I'm still ashamed of how I dealt with it. In more than one way, it backfired - Ian continued his relationship with her, and therefore I couldn't shut her out of my life, because she kept showing up. (On the other hand, looking back, I sometimes think that was a good thing - it kept me from being utterly dependent on Ian during that period of my life. I wasn't in what you would call a good emotional state at that point.) Even when I left Fairbanks after my first semester of college, and tried to put my life back together after dropping out, she was still a difficult part of my life - she ended up following Ian down to Juneau that summer, and (surprise, surprise) they ended up sleeping together. At the time, it was probably the most emotionally devastating thing that could've happened, especially considering that I was already emotionally devastated from dropping out of college, working a crappy job, etc. And yet, I survived, as do we all. Ian and I survived for a while longer, though now I've left him for what he claims is *his* best friend (the feeling is not, I've gathered, mutual). And the spiral of time goes on, though I'd like to think that I'm doing a better job of handling things this time around. Maybe not much better, but better.
And now...and now. Here I am, two years after the breakup, almost six months after the last time I saw her (which is likely to *be* the last time I see her), and twenty minutes of reading her writing is enough to get my chest clenching up again. What's wrong with me?
A lot of it is probably that it's hard to truly let go of people you've once felt that way about. Especially since Elise was the first love interest I was ever heavily physical with, as well as my first (and currently only) girlfriend. Feelings like that don't die easily, and it takes a lot of time for them to do so - usually the only thing that will kill them is being treated with continuous apathy by the other person. (You hear that the opposite of love is hate, but it isn't, it's apathy. Has anyone else ever noticed this? It's much easier to be madly in love with someone who hates you than with someone who doesn't care if you exist.) But because I can't love her after getting to know her better, and because of a lot of our past history, it changes into...I don't know. Something. It's not hatred, exactly, though dislike is part of it. I think it's what's left over when your idealized Platonic vision of something crashes head-on with the actual thing, and everything melts down. That's almost what it feels like, actually - a meltdown. All the feelings I've ever had about her, melted down and congealed into one solid lump that sits right at the solar plexus. But I only feel it when I think about her, or when my happy fantasy that she's dropped out of my life completely is shattered. The truth is, she'll probably remain friends with Ian, and therefore if Ian and I remain friends, she won't leave my life completely. Eventually I'm going to have to find some way to get rid of this lump, or melt it down completely, or something...but for now, here it is, and here it will stay. Congratulations, Elise - you left a part of yourself with me, even though I tried to get rid of you. I guess I wasn't lying when I said that I'd always remember you...
@->--Rose
Okay, well, the truth is, I'm not happy for her. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she's doing well, but reading about her life has suddenly brought back all the mixed emotions that I've always had about her. I don't really know why, since her life is nothing like it was when we were together (for one thing, she's posing as a male and going by another name), but while reading I still got that clutching feeling in my chest that I've had around her since, well...since we broke up. Over two years ago.
I'm still not sure why, exactly, I have such a strong reaction to her. For someone like me, who values their cloak of apathy, it's rather distressing. I found Elise enormously attractive once. Of course, that's before she shaved off all her hair, but still...I thought she was beautiful. I called her Snow White more than once. We once spent five hours (from 9 PM to 2 AM) making love under the Arctic sun. She was there at my graduation from high school. I was infatuated with her.
And then, as things wound down...I hurt her. Just as I've hurt almost everyone I come into close contact with (which is why I tend to keep the world at a distance when I can). I didn't know how to deal with the fact that I no longer wanted to keep up the relationship, that I was attracted to Ian - her best friend! ah, patterns - and so I just started avoiding her. Not all at once, but gradually, I cut off contact. I'm still ashamed of how I dealt with it. In more than one way, it backfired - Ian continued his relationship with her, and therefore I couldn't shut her out of my life, because she kept showing up. (On the other hand, looking back, I sometimes think that was a good thing - it kept me from being utterly dependent on Ian during that period of my life. I wasn't in what you would call a good emotional state at that point.) Even when I left Fairbanks after my first semester of college, and tried to put my life back together after dropping out, she was still a difficult part of my life - she ended up following Ian down to Juneau that summer, and (surprise, surprise) they ended up sleeping together. At the time, it was probably the most emotionally devastating thing that could've happened, especially considering that I was already emotionally devastated from dropping out of college, working a crappy job, etc. And yet, I survived, as do we all. Ian and I survived for a while longer, though now I've left him for what he claims is *his* best friend (the feeling is not, I've gathered, mutual). And the spiral of time goes on, though I'd like to think that I'm doing a better job of handling things this time around. Maybe not much better, but better.
And now...and now. Here I am, two years after the breakup, almost six months after the last time I saw her (which is likely to *be* the last time I see her), and twenty minutes of reading her writing is enough to get my chest clenching up again. What's wrong with me?
A lot of it is probably that it's hard to truly let go of people you've once felt that way about. Especially since Elise was the first love interest I was ever heavily physical with, as well as my first (and currently only) girlfriend. Feelings like that don't die easily, and it takes a lot of time for them to do so - usually the only thing that will kill them is being treated with continuous apathy by the other person. (You hear that the opposite of love is hate, but it isn't, it's apathy. Has anyone else ever noticed this? It's much easier to be madly in love with someone who hates you than with someone who doesn't care if you exist.) But because I can't love her after getting to know her better, and because of a lot of our past history, it changes into...I don't know. Something. It's not hatred, exactly, though dislike is part of it. I think it's what's left over when your idealized Platonic vision of something crashes head-on with the actual thing, and everything melts down. That's almost what it feels like, actually - a meltdown. All the feelings I've ever had about her, melted down and congealed into one solid lump that sits right at the solar plexus. But I only feel it when I think about her, or when my happy fantasy that she's dropped out of my life completely is shattered. The truth is, she'll probably remain friends with Ian, and therefore if Ian and I remain friends, she won't leave my life completely. Eventually I'm going to have to find some way to get rid of this lump, or melt it down completely, or something...but for now, here it is, and here it will stay. Congratulations, Elise - you left a part of yourself with me, even though I tried to get rid of you. I guess I wasn't lying when I said that I'd always remember you...
@->--Rose
