The Grand Delusion

I made the final, romantic/friendship grand gesture yesterday.  I decided that I wasn’t going to be ignored anymore.  The silent treatment – the total lack of communication – was killing me.  Making me emotionally and physically ill.  So I put on a dress, and I curled my hair, and I packaged all my unsent letters (and a Christmas present) and drove 75 miles to knock a door. 

I didn’t have terribly high expectations, but I wanted to see and be seen.  I just wanted a moment of recognition, and maybe a handful of words.  I wanted to either be able to let go properly or to know that things might be okay a hundred tomorrows from now.

I knocked on the door.  Someone else answered.  He didn’t have the courtesy to come to the front door.  So I handed the package to someone else, got back in my car, and drove another 75 miles back home. 

There it is.  That was the end.  Totally anticlimactic.  Utterly void of interpersonal connection. 

As I think about it now, me trying so hard so communicate, and him crushing me with apathy, I sound like a stalker.  He told me to leave him alone.  He said he was unavailable.  I just didn’t believe it, because it came like being sentenced to exile for a crime I didn’t commit.  I should have left him alone.  He shouldn’t have broken my heart.  I shouldn’t have tried so hard.  He should have tried harder.

I feel relief, but it’s the kind of relief a person feels when someone stops punching them in face.  The blows aren’t raining down anymore, but my face still hurts. The black eyes will take a while to disappear.  I will never let someone sucker punch me like that again, even if that means I never get to experience romantic love again.  Romance is overrated.  Love should be soul deep, not conditional.