So Close

(ETA: Recommended listening for this post: "Konstantine" by Something Corporate")


I almost got emotional on the L on my way home from work.

He called.

Ex-boyfriend #1 called.

On Valentine's Day, but not for the obvious reasons.

I haven't heard his voice since June 9th, 2007: the day I broke his heart. The day I set mine free.

Actually... I was the one who decided to break things off, but he broke my heart, too. By not being the person he had been. The person I thought he was. The person I wanted him to be.

I broke up with him over the phone. It may sound harsh, but it was a long distance relationship, and several of our problems stemmed from how infrequently we saw each other. We had been so close, but the distance had put too much strain on things. And I was ready to get out of that relationship. In many ways, I think it was holding me back and preventing me from enjoying things in life.

He was understandably very upset. He told me not to contact him. He said he'd contact me when he was ready.

At first, it was hard not to call him. He was, after all, my best friend.

Around September, I started freaking out because I hadn't heard from him. I actually wrote to a good friend of his to ask her how he was doing. She verified that he was fine, and assured me that he would call me eventually.

Since then, we've had a few mild touches of contact. A couple of text messages to send holiday wishes. A song dedication on Facebook. A birthday present. But that's it.

By the end of November, I was just angry. And I hated that people kept telling me to give him time. I hated that they acted like he was some sort of victim. The moment that hurt the most came from a girl I barely know. She knew my ex, and when I told the story about how he had sent me a CD for my birthday with a card that implied he wasn't ready to talk with me, she said, "Gosh, he's such a nice guy." And she did it with a facial expression that I read as, "How could you do that to him?"

I looked her in the eye and said, "Believe me, if there is ANYONE who knows how great he is, it's me. But we just weren't meant to be."

For some reason, no one understood how much he'd hurt my by cutting me out of his life.

I may have dumped him, but he disowned me.

He screwed up my life, too.

In the three months after I broke up with him, I gained 20 pounds. I dated his opposite. I spent a great deal of time throwing emotions in the general direction of his hometown. Grief. Pity. Empathy. Anger. All in silence, because he had decided to cut me off.

And finally, in December, I decided I just didn't care anymore.

I thought I was over him about a week after I broke up with him. But that wasn't true. I knew I didn't want to be dating him anymore. I knew I had made the right decision. But I was so angry. And the opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference. I suppose I truly got over him then. In December. Six months after we had broken up.

I've heard that it takes half the length of a relationship to get over someone. I was faster than that. We dated for two years, and it took me six months.

And then something happened.

Something that terrified me.

Something that made it clear that I had to talk to him again.

You see, my ex is currently getting his Master's degree at Northern Illinois University right now. And his mother works there as well.

And on Thursday, Valentine's Day, there was a shooting there.

I read about it while I was at work. But what could I do?

My mother called me.

"Call him."

"No. I can't call him."

"Call him!"

"Mom, I'm not calling him. He doesn't want me to call him."

I sent him a text message asking if he was alright, not knowing whether that over-stepped any boundaries.

And then he called me.

"Hi, Sweetie," he said. Out of habit, I suppose. It shocked me.

He and his mother were both on campus at the time of the shootings, but they're both fine.

I told him I was glad that he was alright, and that I had to get off the phone to catch the L.

"That's fine."

"It's really good to hear your voice."

"Yeah. You too. I'll call you soon."

"I hope you do."

*******************************************

I don't really know if I want him to call. I don't know what I'd say to him. I feel like I'd have to censor out a lot. While we were dating, he always had a hard time hearing about other males in my life. Stories involving other guys hitting on me. Hanging out with other guys when he wasn't around. Or hearing about other guys in general. On occasion, I thought his jealousy was his way of joking, but I think it ran deeper than that. I think that on some level, he was terrified that he was going to lose me to another guy.

Part of the reason I broke up with him was that I was sick of censoring myself. He asked me not to tell him any stories about going to bars with guys in the cast of the play I was in. I wanted to tell my best friend, my boyfriend didn't want to know, and I had the unfortunate circumstance of having the same person playing both roles in my life.

I don't want to hurt him any more than I already have. So I can't tell him about ex-boyfriend #2 (whom I started dating less than two weeks after breaking up with him). And I can't tell him about Brian. And, well, those have been two pretty significant things that have happened to me in the time since we broke up. Especially the Brian part.

But it's not just relationships. I'd have to leave out Ian. And Ricky. And John. And half of my coworkers. And every other male presence in my life. And if I do that, well, then, I sound like a hermit with no friends, a.k.a. a person who's obviously hiding something.

I can't help it. I always have more male friends than female ones. It's just the way I operate. I remember the night before I left to move into college for my freshman year, I decided to have a bunch of friends over to my house. I called them all to invite them. Phil, Sean, Jeffrey, Nyal, Jim, Mike, Paul, Steve... and Whitney. I remember thinking, "Dear God, what have I done?!" I grew up with brothers. I'm not as good at being friends with girls as I am with guys (although I suppose it's worth pointing out that only a couple of the guys from the aforementioned list are straight... but still).

In college, I found the men. Luckily, there were a few handy co-ed colleges very close by, and so it wasn't difficult. And I can easily say that my two best friends in college were named Mike and Greg. They were the kinds of guys I needed to save my sanity. Greg once skipped going to a Blessid Union of Souls concert so that he could help me study for a test. Mike once took me out dancing the night before I had two papers due, because he could sense how stressed out I was. Greg took me to play mini-golf. Mike to me to an OK Go concert (before they were viral break-out stars). In retrospect, it seems we had all the perks of dating without actually having to make a commitment. And it worked out very nicely. For awhile, at least.

My ex quickly bonded with Mike, sensing that there was no threat there. Although I had a crush on Mike for about 5 seconds, it had quickly been crushed the night I found myself holding his forehead as he vomited in a drunken stupor, weeping about another girl. I used to refer to Mike as the older brother I never had. We fight, both in argument and wrestling. We make fun of each other. And the thought of us ever being anything other than just friends... oh yuck. Feels like incest. In summation, Mike is the definition of "As Good As Gay".

But my ex never bonded with Greg. Probably at least in part because he knew that I had been interested in Greg at one point in time (I used to write poetry about him in my diary-x back in the day. I was pretty crushed on him).

I began dating my ex while Greg was studying abroad (which is the reason I was able to get over Greg in the first place). When he came back from being abroad, it was as if neither of them knew what to do with each other. Greg had been my closest friend and the #1 male in my life. I suspect that, on some level, he and my ex both felt threatened by the presence of the other. As a result, Greg and I grew more distant. It's one of the biggest regrets I have from that time of my life.

I don't think I've ever had as close a friend as Greg, and I'm not sure I ever will again. I could listen to a song and know whether Greg would like it or not. He could gauge my reactions to movies we watched based on how my body moved as I stared at the screen. Not only could we finish each other's sentences, we could finish each other's THOUGHTS. There were literally times when we would look at each other and just start laughing, not even needing to verbalize the private joke that we knew had been triggered simultaneously in both our minds. The joke materialized without ever coming out of our mouths, and everyone else in the room just stared at us in confusion. And while Greg and I will always be able to call each other and pick up close to where we left off, I doubt we'll ever get back to the place we were.

I had very physical friendships with both Mike and Greg (not in a "friends with benefits" kind of way... I never kissed either of them). I spent several nights sleeping next to each of them. I cuddled with them while watching movies. I climbed on them. I sat on their laps. I danced with them at parties, in bars, and at the swing dancing classes I dragged them to. We had tickle fights, long hugs, back rubs, and piggyback rides. I guess that's where my life took a turn for physical dependency. I think they needed it as much as I did. Well, almost as much. That physical closeness helped me from going crazy more than once.

Now, I have a desire to make all my friendships sort of like that, but it's tricky. With Mike and Greg, there was sort of an unspoken agreement that nothing else was going to happen. Greg had gone head-over-heels for a girl back home many years before (which originally put him on the AGAG list... until he flipped the switch... long story). And Mike... well, Mike and I weren't attracted to each other. I love the guy, but it was clear that we were meant to be friends.

Starting new physically close relationships is more of a challenge. I think I've recently managed it with a couple of friends, but it's still very much in the "this could end up going horribly wrong" phase. People misunderstand my intentions. They think I'm flirting. They think it means that I desperately want them, and that I'm throwing myself in their general direction. Or, if nothing else, they think it means they have a chance with me. And then the switch has been flipped in their minds, even though it's still firmly in place in mine.

In fact, that's what my ex thought before we were dating, when I climbed onto his lap and promptly fell asleep. But that wasn't the case at all. In fact, I was declaring him "just a friend" with that action; I was treating him exactly the way I would've treated Mike. If I were at all interested in him (or if I had suspected that he might have been interested in me), I never would've done it. I would've analyzed every action with a little too much preparation. I would've kept my distance.

Sorry. I don't know how I got sidetracked there... Ah well.

The point is, there are a lot of things my ex wouldn't want to know about. In fact, that was one of the things that led to our break up. There were too many things happening to me that he didn't want to know about because he couldn't physically be there to witness them.

It was weird hearing his voice again. And him sounding exactly the same. And it feeling like the conversation had very little weight to it, despite both the subject matter and the given circumstances.

But none of that is the reason I got strung up on the L. No, that I blame on some unfortunate timing from my iPod. Some of the songs weren't even sad... but their lyrical content got to me.

(I've added all the following songs to my ProjectPlaylist above so that you can listen to them if you'd like.)

"You're the Only One" by Maria Mena
A couple of lines got to me. Like, "You're the only one who knows how to handle me," because I felt like that around him for a long time. Another was, "You're the only one who holds my hair back when I'm drunk and get sick." Suddenly I was transported back to the night of my 21st birthday.

"The Rain Song" by The Bangles
In which a woman says she's over a guy and claims she rarely thinks of him, but she remembers every time it rains.

"I Don't Need You" by The Pierces
"Never could look back/Never would look back/Because/I don't need you/And you don't need me"

"Konstantine" by Something Corporate
If you don't already know this song, YOU MUST LISTEN TO IT. Okay, I can't force you, but you really should. It's over 9.5 minutes long, but it's one of the most beautiful, haunting songs I know. And I love it. And I could cry to it without any other stimulation. The line that always gets me is "They'll never hurt you like I do."

Seriously, just bad timing on all of them.

I probably wouldn't have gotten that close to showing emotion, except that it's February, and my S.A.D. brings every emotion a lot closer to the surface. It's like being bipolar for a month every year.

I feel like I'm so close to being able to talk to him again. Something that I wanted so badly and for so long. And I'm not even sure how I feel about that anymore.


May you find the closeness you crave.
And may you get as close as you need.

~A~


P.S. Monday is the first day that graduate schools are allowed to start making offers. After that, there is a three week "offers period". Please say prayers for me. There are three schools that I'm really strongly considering, and I would be blessed to get an offer from any. But I'd love to have options. Pray for three offers. And also pray that if that happens, I become miraculously decisive. ;)