Second Chances

J sightings always take a couple of days to get over. Just because I have so much that I would like to say to him and feel that I could finally get some closure if I could just freaking say it.

Right after we broke up, I sent him an email trying to explain why I was such a horrible bitch towards the end of our relationship. It wasn’t that I didn’t know I was doing it. I knew full well. I also knew that he was too involved at the time. I’d just lost the closest person to me and I’d started the downward spiral of depression and he was just too…there. He meant well, he really did. He wanted to know what I was feeling, wanted me to cry on his shoulder, wanted to talk about it. I wanted nothing of the sort. I wanted to wallow. I wanted to be in bed, listening to sad music. I wanted to be invisible. He moved closer and I pushed him away every time. I couldn’t let him see my weakness or my depression and I wanted him to leave me alone. I wanted him to back off.

Eventually, as I continued to build a wall, he started to give me the space that I thought I needed. Partially because he wanted to but mostly, I believe, because his hours at work were becoming unpredictable and odd and he didn’t have a choice. The more space I got, the more I wanted. The less he was around to try and soothe me, the more I could ignore the way I felt. I drank more. I partied more. I missed him less and less.

One day, while I was driving to the same Emergency Room where I’d lost my favorite human being to pick up a friend, I broke down. J sat on the other end of the phone and tried to decipher the scattered words through the sobbing. He tried to calm me down. He offered to come and get me. But I was too far gone. As I sat in the parking lot where I’d spent my birthday, praying that my grandmother would live, I lost it. I could no longer pretend that everything was okay. I could no longer be alone, but I could no longer subject him to any more of my insanity. I had to let him go. Just like I’d had to let her go.

After a while, I was able to sort through things enough that I felt human again. I was able to enjoy things. I was still a mess, but I was improving. Of course, by that time, J had moved on. I had successfully chased him right into the arms of his best friend. And even though I was happy for them, I wished I could just have a chance to explain. I never got it. I don’t know for sure that, even if given that chance, I would have been able to explain. But I do know now, that it would be worth it just to try. Because I know that at least then, I could be at peace.