day107 - distance and its associated benefits
it is late at night and your mind aches with the revelations of today. your sundays are typically very lethargic but you had a mission beginning very early this morning. you must take the girl you love1 to the airport.
revelations of the previous night:
- you're really bad at getting to parties on time
- damn you look good.
- you have had a lot to drink!
- some people can't (or won't) be helped, no matter how much you care. but most pertinent of all:
- fuck. you'd really like to go to your friends' wedding with her.
as the girlfriend of the girlfriend (and also your very close friend) watches the pair tag onto the end of the security line, it says to you "Just wait till you can't spot her in the distance anymore. Then you'll start crying."
You make a noise like "ehhhhhh....", because the thought of crying about this hadn't really occurred to you yet— but sure enough, as you turn and walk out the automatic doors of the terminal, you begin to well up.
Revelation #1: Yeah, You LOVE Her. No Shit. You've been lying to yourself long after the words "I love you" passed your lips: not fully allowing yourself to be happy for a variety of reasons, from keeping yourself "safe", to holding onto the possibility of a renewed closeness with someone who has treated you poorly for months. No more. You're all in.
You ended up spending the entire day with the aforementioned girlfriend-of-the-girlfriend-and-also-your-friend (of some renown). After breakfast you drove it to your place. You decided to catch up on some of the non-existent sleep you got last night. Quite petulantly, (because god forbid you ask earnestly), you say: "I'm cold. Can we cuddle."
They laugh, and after a brief squabble over who gets to be which spoon, you were warm again.
You go to the city for lunch. All day you've been swapping stories about the girls who have just left, and talking about a whole host of other things too.
Revelation #2: This Place Has Really Good Dumplings Need I say more? Really, this revelation is a coded message, something about reconnecting with people who care about you, who you've been distant from lately. You share a plate of 12 dumplings and you both agree it was a great choice. Your heart is full.
You return to their place, incidentally, also the abode of the afformentioned jet-setting indie devs, and you both cosy up in their bed. You read through old Discord messages and marvel at how things evolved from the start of the year. Some rapid fire revelations:
- Revelation #3: It's Been Eight Months Since You All Met
- Revelation #4: It's Been Four Months Since You First Asked Her Out
- Revelation #5: It's Been Just Under A Month Since You Said "I Love You"
You're home again, trying to resize your Windows EFI partition, refusing to consult her guide out of pride, stubbornness, and stupidity. You stumble into an honest conversation.
Revelation #6: You Deserve Better People have been saying this for months and you've struggled to buy it. The old flame, long extinguished, admits her apprehension. For a while you've felt a little bit used. You think back to a Friday evening conversation with a coworker. You tell her:
"This is the thing, you match their energy, they match yours for a bit, and suddenly it switches up and you're left feeling unreasonably needy or desperate."
She agrees so emphatically that you feel like you've uncovered some truth that is nigh impossible to speak. She says to you:
"it seems like you're chasing something here with her that's already right in front of you with this other girl."
You agree.
Back in the present moment you feel hurt, you feel used, and you feel ashamed. Ashamed that you might have imposed some kind of expectation on her. You thought the playing field was even, but it wasn't. You feel like you've been unknowingly made complicit in pushing her to do things she didn't want to do. The earnest affection you had for her feels, in retrospect, more like violence. You're mad because she wasn't honest, and you're even more upset because she felt she couldn't be.
And you know it wasn't malicious. You're both dumb, confused young people. It's so easy to keep doing what you think is expected of you, and not speak up for yourself. But you thought things were much more honest between you.
And it's not like this is out of the blue. Months ago you had some kind of similar conversation. You accepted it, still felt for her, but decided you didn't want to impose that— would much rather just wait and see how life played out. That was your big cope, that either you'd have some unrealistic Happily Ever After, or eventually you'd become comfortable enough to move on. Then, a kiss at a party, a whirlwind morning, a few strange weeks, etc. There was no urgency in your mind, no pre-ordained, unspoken commitment, just the understanding that you were both enjoying yourselves. Enjoying closeness.
You don't know how long ago it stopped being that. The whole point of your connection was that you were honest, that neither of you forced expectation onto one another.
So you're crying in bed, with Luci and your newly crocheted puppy in your arms, and you realise that the "better" you deserve is currently across the ocean.
And her girlfriend, whom you also love— but not in that way.↩