After a few hours, that rage transformed into sadness. I felt like you were dismantling the home I built brick by brick and I felt an overwhelming sense of isolation and loneliness, though I did not miss you for even a second... But it was in that realization that the seed of understanding sprouted.
This is you trying desperately to control just one thing when you know you are powerless over everything...and that one thing is me. I can see the ideas hovering over your head, like cartoon captions, even though I suspect these ideas are actually buried deeply in the fucked up mess that is your subconscious. If only you could become what I want, then I would love you and you could be happy again.
As the understanding grew into a tiny bud, I saw everything more clearly. This is you, not trying to fuck with my life. This is you, completely oblivious to difference between me and not me; you and not you; love and boundaries. This is you, completely lost without the map dozens of other women and I have served as over the years. You have never completed your “on the road” style Jack Kerouac journey, so you figure you will become what you think we want you to be... me, her, or them... it's really all the same delusion.
But the fatal flaw in that tangled mess of your subconscious is that I never wanted you to be anyone other than who you were; that I wanted only for you to know who you are so much so that you could be you and I could be me and we could support each other in that way adults do coming together at the intersections of life. I never wanted you to pretend to be more intellectual or less angry. I never wanted you to take on a role in that world. I just wanted you to see that space between you and me and honor it.
As this bud started to open, I thought back to our first date and how you told me you were destined to be with her. Not 12 hours later your tune had changed and the silhouette of "her" turned into a silhouette of "me," though it could have been her, or anyone really.
Now, as I fight the urge to write you a scathing response that I may or may not send, I try to think of you as a small child. You see me playing with this doll, and you want that doll; not because you actually want to play with it... you don't even like dolls-- something I suspect her "sense of energy" will realize soon enough. You just want what I have, because you don't know what it is that you want.
So, even though I feel angry at and rejected by her; frustrated with and betrayed by you, I choose to sit in this moment. This is how it is right now, and even though I can't go to meditation, because you stole that too, I know I have dozens of other homes, hundreds of communities that I have built and nurtured. And more than anything-- so as to not to confuse this with a me versus you battle which it is not-- I have me. I have this sense of self that allows me to walk into and out of communities based on my needs and my boundaries... I have this self love that helps me to know who I am with or without you.
And eventually, you will find someone else to guide you, wandering aimlessly through the world based on nothing but someone else's identity and your identity in relationship to theirs. And I will be right here-- in my body-- no matter how angry, sad, or content I feel. Although I hope that one day you too figure out who it is that you are, so you can stop stealing my spaces and start recognizing and respecting boundaries, I won't hold my breath. Instead, I will sit here, in my skin, exhale, and say "this is how it is, right now."
Love, me.