Whatever I say

So what I guessed would happen, happened. Tonight you told me you'd be leaving.

Sometimes I wonder what you would have me say. You roll your eyes when I say something you don't like to hear (stop it. It really doesn't help). I think a married couple would have pondered this carefully, and then made a clear and agreed decision. Together. Instead all I could say really is, that it was the only way for your career. 

Maybe that's another way to look at why I felt upset 8 years ago (no matter that my reaction then could have been better). That I didn't feel that our decision was made as a couple. 

I mentioned my dad had spoken to me. What he said in fact was, have you decided who will be your life partner? He suggested that was why was so unstable in my life. That jolted me again tonight, when you said you didn't understand why I have been so agitated recently / all these years. Isn't it obvious...? You are a main cause. And that's not meant to sound accusatory. It's meant to tell you that you mean something to me. 

Anyhow, I did think I'd found my life partner, if the number of years spent feeling frustrated are any measure. But after so many years, we still can't meet and have a conversation without unhappiness seeping in. When a single missed chance of fetching you, led you to think I didn't care. That I can't understand why my words to let you know I care, that I hurt too, are misinterpreted or you take it so negatively rather than how I meant it. I told you about people who've come in and out of my life... I rarely felt misunderstood by any of them. Yet the sad thing is - those people are not you. 

I know you felt frustrated and hurt and neglected back then too. But I think in the last few years, you've recovered, better than I am. Maybe that's why you're more calm, your career is blossoming to where it should be. While I remain, agitated and frustrated that life hasn't moved on. That despite not hearing or listening or not seeing you, this one last relationship has colored me, affected me emotionally that moving on, seems impossible. 

I wish, I wish you hadn't said, that now you're finally out of my life. That you didn't say on the way back, that we would probably end up with people we didn't expect. And that when i held you in the car, you'd hold me back. So you see, you can be realistic and blunt too, like how you say I am. Of course there's truth in that, but... I guess that we, both, never did learn to say the soft nice words we both craved. Or that's how we are now. Less friends now than when we began.

Ok, I'll try this once, in my own way, if it means anything to you. To say the nice things: that I haven't stopped missing you. And not thinking about you helped, cos then my mind would wonder and forget, until my heart reminded me again. That I wished long ago when we both still had that little flame in our hearts, we learnt how to meet the other person's needs. 

I really do think in this case, I am the less realistic one. That you moved on, cos you are more practical than you might care to admit. Whereas I am going round and round and wonder about those years. 

Why am I writing all this? As I said tonight, we can get angry and upset and disappointed. We can burn so many years away. But the one thing that would make me upset, is for you to misunderstand for the rest of your life what I did and what I said; for you to think I stopped caring; that I didn't love you or care. That's why when we talk I go on and on about this, to share my emotion. 

I guess this is apt, that we come full circle, to the same incident so many years ago, and the decisions you made and I made, that sealed our fate.