It is often tempting when you fall in love to fight it. The very term - to fall - gives some clue as to why this should be. To love is an act of faith. Sometimes it is difficult to accept that at first. It's my experience of love that it often surprises you. Mostly, I think, you are actually 'in love' some time before you accept it. It's not altogether denial, though that will often play a part. Love is such a big and confusing thing that it can be hard to comprehend - it's like all your receptors are jammed with such a multiplicity of powerful signals that it is impossible to understand.
Once you know it though there is no doubt of it. You may deny it, you may call it something else, but inside where it counts you know it.
As so often seems the case with me I am once more in a situation where it is more convenient to deny it. I'm done denying it myself, I accept what I feel and take it for what it is. My nature is very different in this regard from Paige, and my situation lends itself much easier to such an admission. Still and all, she loves me and finds herself torn in two by it.
It is difficult for her because she is in another relationship. And it is difficult for her because she is suspicious of hope. In theory at least it is easier to accept what is rather than hope for what can be. That's the theory. In reality she now finds herself tied up in knots because of it.
Paige and I are currently not speaking. That understates it - there is a bitter edge to the relationship on her side. Last week I withdrew myself from her. I had wanted to hang in there, I had been patient though often frustrated, my moments of anger cancelled out by desire to be there for her. Over the course of last week much of that changed.
It started on Monday with an email from her telling me how sad it was we had gone from happy and fun times together to this angry state of disrepair. She told of the many happy memories she had, and concluded by saying it had been nice knowing me.
I responded with something similar. I told her I wanted for us to go back to those times. She did not respond. Sometime after that I decided it was time to move on. I've been hanging on in the hope for something turning, but it was all so indeterminate that I knew I could no longer continue to wait in the same way. I had to move on.
I wrote a final email. It was a gentle and considered email I think, and it had the ring of settled truth to it. I wrote it was sad that we could both have the same feelings about the other, but could not manage to get together. I spoke of good memories, and of the difficulty of never knowing if and when things might change, and not knowing why. Now I knew, I told her, it ends now. I finished with few housekeeping items, my best wishes and that was that.
She had blocked me in chat earlier in the week: I now did the same. I hesitated, but finally deleted her as one of my facebook friends. In the morning I got a different train. I wanted to wipe things clean, start anew.
On Monday the fun started. She told at least one person that she was afraid of me - she went so far to embellish a story about how she was home alone and fearful that I would come banging on the door. Needless to say, I would never even begin to think to do that - as my friend knew. My friend was told that Paige could not talk to her anymore - she wanted nothing to do with anyone associated with me. They argued and then Paige blocked her. Then to top it all off she went and deleted her whole facebook profile.
I was angry, as you might expect. Then sort of numbed - it seemed too ridiculous to take seriously. Then I felt concern for her. Her actions spoke of a state of mind in extreme duress. I backed off. When I had anything to do with her - and typically there were a few occasions - I was innoffensively pleasant.
My take on this has been cooking for a while. I know she liked me a lot. I think those months ago she found herself in a position where something had to happen. Before her was a fork in the road. She felt things, but wasn't sure of them, wasn't sure what I felt. I understand the dilemma, it's her response to it that rattled me. She withdrew completely from me, cold turkey, from being very involved friends to non-communicating acquaintances. I guess that's her way of controlling it.
In the weeks since there were times we got closer, times where I thought we would get back. Each time though something failed. One day we were to have lunch when I gt sick instead. And then as I was about to return she reported she was not ready yet. It was not yet under control.
And here we are today. I think I shook her last week with the seeming finality of what I did. She expected me to always be there, and suddenly I told her I could not. On top of that I wiped her from my life. She felt shocked and maybe a little guilty and very much rejected. She lashed out, wildly.
I don't think she believes the things she said. In part I think she was trying to win others to her, irrational as the attempt was. I think also it is easier for her to cope by demonising me. She can justify things that way, the end of the relationship, the guilt she might feel at it, the sense of rejection, and so on. There's a lot of smoke there, and a lot of fire causing it.
I don't know how things will pan out. I suspect she will make some overtures sometime in the next few weeks. She will settle down. No matter how much she tries it will be difficult sustaining that anger when she knows in her heart that it's baseless.
I'm in a different place to her. I've done all I'm going to do, but at the same time I accept what I feel. It's no good fighting love I think. It's like one of those nets, the more you struggle against it the more tangled up you get. That's what happened with Paige. Sometimes it's easier going through it than fighting it, or trying to back out of it. It's like in some of those westerns when someone has a arrow in their arm - it's easier sometimes to push it all the way through to get it out, than to try and take it out the way it came.
I love her. I want to be with her. It might happen, it might not. I accept that though, all of it - I'm going through with it and it even works or finishes as it should.
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