"You will percieve that such a view of the world presents difficulties. I have trouble making certain connections. I have trouble maintaining the basic notion that keeping promises matters in a world where everything I was taught seems beside the point. The point itself seems increasingly obscure."

-Joan Didion, In the Islands

Forget about all the memories that keep you down, forget about them we can lose them in the sparkle and fade.

Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more that your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Yes? No? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love . You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson. You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Anderson? Why? Why do you persist?

Neo: Because I choose to.

Well, to put things simply, after last night's colossal explosion, Kindall and I are over. For good. No longer "on a break," but over. This is what she wants, and I have no choice but to respect that. Maybe eventually, I'll be up to writing an epilogue to the past 3 1/2 years, but for right now, I just want to say a few things.

I do not harbor any negative feelings toward my ex, nor am I going to bad mouth her here. I also am not trying to turn everyone against her. Please keep that in mind.

Kindall wants to still be friends. I would be fine with this, if it weren't easier said than done. Perhaps she is able to go from a 3 1/2 year relationship where we both were terribly intimate and comfortable with each other to "just being friends." I, however, am not able to do that. That isn't saying that I don't want to be friends eventually. That's saying that right now, I need to get over her and move on, and in order to do that, I won't be seeing her except in passing. I do want to be friends with her, but I am realistic enough to see the impossibility of that just happening immediately. Perhaps down the line, that will be possible. It will depend on several factors.

What does this mean to everyone else at Mount? What this means is that you most likely won't be seeing much of me. Please do not take this the wrong way. This is the way that things have to be. I want you all to know that I love you very much, and just because I'm not around as much doesn't mean that we're not friends. I hope you can understand. Right now, I need to get over Kindall, and I would never put any of you in the position of making you choose between me and her. That's not the way things should be, and I'm sorry that things turned out this way. Please don't take this out on her. It's not entirely her fault.

The reason that we broke up is far too complex to detail here. It's far too complex to understand, in many ways. Part of it was problems with "me" and problems with "her", and part was problems with "me and her." These problems, in my opinion, could have been resolved had we dealt with them as they arose, or before they arose when possible. However, due to the fact that both of us were too stubborn to concede, we didn't. Instead, we came up with temporary solutions that worked for a week at most. Then we were back to the same stupid games. While I will admit that part of this is my fault, I will not say that she is blameless.

Each of us views this situation differently, and I think that the outlook is the key. She seems to think that all of the problems are with me. While I do have significant problems that do need addressing, it is foolish to assume that all of the problems with our relationship find thier source in my shortcomings. There were just as many problems with her, but I looked over them. She claims that I was "abusive" in that I was controlling and selfish, but she failed to realize that there were times when she was downright mean to me for no reason. I ignored it. I didn't make a big deal of it. I put up with it. And I was still happy. Why is this? Was it that my love outweighed any negative thing she could have done? Was it that I was just too naive? Was it that I felt she was justified in doing these things? No. It's that I always saw a brighter day. I always saw happiness on the horizon, if both of us would make it happen. I always had a sense that we could overcome anything that was thrown at us, if we would only resolve to do it.

She claims that I could have been better to her. That's true, and I'll admit it. I could have been better to her. In retrospect, there are a million different things that I would do if I could only go back and do them. I understand that I could have been better to her, but that's not the point. She could have been better to me in so many ways, and I'm not sure that she understands that and is willing to accept that. I'm not the only one who thinks that, either. Someone very close to me who had a front row seat to all of this told me so, and I'm almost 100% sure that the person isn't just patronizing me. But once again, I stayed happy. I thought that if we could fix the problems, all of it would be worth it. The operative word in that last statement is "we." Just having me fix my own life and my own problems wouldn't have been enough.

In a lot of ways, nothing I did ever seemed good enough. In a lot of ways, nothing is ever good enough for her. In all honesty, there are only a few things that I ever did in the relationship that I felt truly proud of, because I got the credit for doing them that I deserved. There were only a few things that I thought were truly appreciated. Maybe a large part of why I stopped doing things is because at one point, they stopped being appreciated. I do think that can be terribly ungrateful at times, and I've said that to her before. It is very difficult to continue in a relationship where you pretty consistently feel like you're never good enough, like nothing you ever do will be good enough, and where you feel like nothing you do is ever appreciated. She said to me tonight, in an effort to rationalize the breakup, "If you abuse a dog, it doesn't come back home." Well, that's true, in some cases. I don't know what this says about me, but I kept coming back, and when I asked her to stop abusing me, she didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to do it. And so we part ways.

I may have done a lot of things wrong, but I did equally as many or more things right. The same goes for her. It's all about where you place your focus. Are you going to let the negatives make you absolutely miserable, or the positives make you absolutely happy? Or are you just looking for excuses to prove something to yourself?

When I am ready to love again, whoever it may be, I will have learned a lot from the past 3 1/2 years. I will take something away, and I will not make the same mistakes again. And one day, somewhere down the line, I think that she may realize how good she really had it with me, and I'll be gone. I never physically abused her. I never cheated on her. And I never intentionally wronged her. She provided me with the same courtesy. It takes an almost superhuman quality to put up with a lot of the things that I tolerated, and I did almost all of it without batting an eyelash. Maybe when she realizes that, we can talk. Maybe when she's ready to examine her own life under the same microscope that I've been examining my own under, we can talk. Maybe when she's willing to make a relationship work, we can talk. Hopefully, I won't be spoken for.

Until then, we're just acquaintences. Maybe someday, we'll be able to be friends.

Everything that has a beginning, has an end.

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.



A.

¿Yo que te quiero tanto, que voy a hacer? Me dejaste... me dejaste como una paloma.

I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole.

What do you do when even your best intentions somehow go to shit and you feel like your life and subsequent relationships are falling apart like an ancient stone building in an earthquake? What do you do when you wake up to find yourself standing in the middle of a pile of rubble that is what was once your life, love, memories, dreams, hopes, and desires? Do you rebuild, or build anew?

Consider that the building was once beautiful, solid, and strong. Nothing could shake it, and not even the most powerful earthquake could shake its foundation. Had an atomic bomb struck or nuclear war erupted, the building would be the sole standing edifice left amidst a landscape of destruction. Recently, however, the building has fallen into disarray and disrepair. The insidious seed of doubt has worked its sneaky way in and rotted the building from the inside out, destroying the foundation and all that was once good about it. The tenants have failed to keep the building clean, and it will need a lot of work to become inhabitable again.

However, the building still has the capacity for greatness. It still has the potential to be all that it once was and more. It still has the ability to defy the odds and rise again to greatness.

Knowing all of this, do you rebuild, or do you start anew? That, Hamlet, is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them.

I think that much of tonight's events stem from two main problems which, in my opinion, shouldn't have been: A misunderstanding and a good intention gone awry.

I know that over the past few days, I have posted a lot in here about what I'm feeling and whether I want to get back together or part ways and see other people. I have waivered back and forth. For a period of time, I was almost convinced that I was over her and ready to move on and start the process of building a new relationship.

I was mistaken.

Tuesday, we were so close to getting back together. Then, between yesterday and today, I fucked everything up. Tonight, I really did have good intentions. My intentions, however, exploded all over the place, due in part to a combination of past negative experiences and, in my opinion, one colossal misunderstanding which tainted everything and which wasn't discovered until it was far too late and the situation was entirely out of control and no longer salvagable, despite all of my best efforts.

Tonight, everything may be over. I have, in a pattern that is all too recurring in my life, dug myself into a hole that I will never be able to fill. My only escape will be complete forgiveness, and I'm not really sure how likely that is. I've said far too much tonight, and seriously flew off the handle for the first time in a long time. I ended up walking to Payless Shoes to cool off, which is around a mile away. That's a guess.

And to think that I had so many opportunities to avoid this incident. I could have gone to Mercyhurst with Jesse and Sage, but no, I planned on getting work done. I could have stayed at the Theatre house or gone to shoot pool with those guys, but no, I had to think that a nice gesture of reconciliation and mending long-broken fences in good faith would be a smart move. I could have ignored the situation, but no, I had to want to make a move at fixing things. May the foolishness of unrestrained and unconditional love be damned.

Why, oh why, didn't I take the blue pill?

All I wanted to do was make a move to show that I was serious about fixing this relationship and reparing problems as opportunities arise. Things didn't work out that way.

I think that one recurring theme in my life is that I can never have anything good that works out. If I don't fuck it up, it's taken away from me against my will or without my control. Nothing seems to work out, and maybe that's just life. I feel like I'm grossly misunderstood in far too many ways, which causes far too much tension and far too many problems. Maybe this is just my life, and maybe this is just my problem, and maybe there will never be a solution.

I just feel like nothing that I do is ever worth it or appreciated. Maybe it's that I'm not appreciative of everything that other people do for me. I feel like a terrible person because of some of the stuff that was said to me tonight. Maybe I am. I feel like I'm spinning out of control because of some of the things I did tonight. Maybe I am. I don't know. I try really hard to be a good person and do the right thing. So many times, though, what I think is the right thing goes horribly wrong and leaves me on the floor, crying and hoping for something better.

Is there something better? Is this it? Have I ruined it all?

Will my questions ever be answered?

Who knows.


A.