I Know How This Ends

“I may not be a smart man Jenny, but I know what love is.” Forrest Gump

Unlike Forrest Gump, I am a smart woman, really fucking smart actually, I know a little of what love is (finally) and I DEFINITELY have a PhD in what love isn’t.

I’ve been so close to love I could touch it and taste it and I’ve been so far off the mark I might as well have been on Jupiter.

I do know what tough love is and I’m about to dish some of that up, with some sprinkles and a cherry on top.

One of my girls said “but I’m in love with him” while also describing some pretty shitty behavior by her SO.

It took a lot for me Not to scream ‘no you fucking aren’t’.

My tongue is still bleeding, all over this post.

Instead I said “when you are ready to hear my opinion, let me know. I will try to be nice.”

I see a lot of myself in her, my old self, the sad self that clung to men for some semblance of self-worth and identifiers I hadn’t yet created on my own. She has one main identifier and he wants her to quit it, it is taking a lot for me not to get on a plane and go get her.

Ever hear that saying that the things we hate about others are reflections of the things we hate about ourselves?

Ya that.

I wish we had some kind of hive-mind-Borg capability, like the telepathic part in our brain would reactivate instead of lying dormant so I could just reach out to her and she could feel what I’ve felt. Saying ‘I know how this ends and it’s ugly as fuck’ is not enough.

I do know how this ends, and it IS ugly as fuck. She is overlooking ALL the clues, subtle and blatant for a delusion she’s created.

And of course I can sit there and say this, because I’m not in it.
I can see clearly what he is doing. Read his body language in their selfies, hear the words coming out of his mouth without putting a filter on it.
But when I look at my own relationships, the rose-colored glasses come on and I can’t see red either.
I had a man tell me I wasn’t allowed to love him and my initial reaction was to be stubborn, dig my heels in and stay. It’s too late, it already happened.
Luckily my voices of reasoning and self-preservation showed up in the night. Maybe their flight got delayed, who knows. But I woke up and saw the truth. Either someone broke his heart before or he was born without one. Regardless he didn’t have love to give me. Attention and affection, sure, but not ultimately what I want and deserve.

I pulled way back, to the safe place and regrouped.

I have my Buddha on the mountain top, wise woman moments. I’m fairly Zen. I accept my flaws and try to work with them or around them. My fragile heart that used to be made of not-quite-dry papier-mâché is now made of safety glass, so when it does get smashed it hurts less. We call this progress.

I have also accepted and embraced the idea that we can’t change people, we have to love them as we find them. The flip side is we can chose to love them from a distance. I do a lot of loving from the safety of way over here.

I’ve also realized there are so many kinds of love. I used to be addicted to that fiery-passionate-fuck-or-fight all the time “love”. I abdicated that throne and moved over to being the Sovereign Queen of Settling, that old married feeling after a few months. Neither one suited me.
So I stopped.
I spent 4 years alone realizing all of my accomplishments were my own and I could’ve done a lot more had I comprehended that truth sooner and cut loose the dead-weight of my plethora of exes.
I love being alone so much that even though I’m with a good partner now, I still crave it often.

Gimme Agape, an adulty, pure kinda love mixed with some eros. Agape is defined as selfless, uncomplicated and unconditional. Without angst or pain.

I mean if agape was the only kind of love we had, we wouldn’t have any semblance of art as we know it. No one wants to read books or listen to songs about coming home and just feeling calm and good. I sit back now and listen to music about unrequited love, or crazy passionate love and I shake my head and think ‘you poor fucker, I hope it gets better for you.’

The friend in question? I want to shake the baby. Pull a Cher in Moonstruck, slap her and say “snap out of it”.

Actually, truth be told I have a few girlfriends, myself included, that are clinging to mens that are not their person. But only one of us is across the international dateline getting treated like shit.

So listen.

You don’t love him. You love the idea of him. Your biological clock is ticking so loud you can’t hear the truth. He doesn’t love you either. Which is no fault of your own. He doesn’t know you because you don’t know you. How do I know? Because I was you, I know you and I do love you.

You are fooling yourself, ignoring relationships with your friends that are reciprocal (because we do know you and love you) and you are wasting valuable time and money on something that is going to go down in flames when he carelessly tosses yet another match at it. You are the only one who is going to get burned.

He is not your person, come back to your real people and regroup.

I am the eldest of the group and I can tell you, we only have so much time in this life. I would give anything to go back and escape every minute I have spent pining over my idea of who someone was. Take off the blinders and see what is actually happening instead of seeing what you want to see.

Please just come home.

Author’s note

Almost everything ends.
When it comes to romantic relationships I believe the mourning period is extended by a secondary kind of death.
The loss of the future you imagined with this person.
By lying to yourself that there is even a future there, that is a slower even more painful death, that can be avoided with proper treatment. Like pulling your head out of your own ass for starters.
Plucking out my eyes and handing them to her so she can See what is actually happening isn’t feasible.
Good news is that looking at her problem gave me new eyes about my own.
There is no happily ever after for me, for now and that’s fine. I’m good with what I got.
I think a huge part of the mourning process in break ups is dealing with the things that didn’t happen…the wishes you made on behalf of someone else.
The universe doesn’t work that way.
Build your own solid life before you invite someone else in.
Create your own happiness withing yourself, otherwise it can be taken away from you.
The end.