2539 Remembering the bad things

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Josh Billings: "There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory."

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In the movie I saw last Tuesday, the young man is hurting from the breakup, and his little sister advises him that to get over a lost love, you don't dwell on the good things, you try to remember the bad things.

Yeah. When we're in the midst of an infatuation, we see all the good and push away the bad.

I did that with Roman. He's got a lot of good points, but he's also got a lot of bad, and when I was too close to him, I saw only the good. That's why now, when the unacceptable situation that drove me away is gone, done, no longer an issue, I know that I'll never get back with him in that way again, because now I see him clearly. I still like him and count him as a friend, but no longer a partner candidate.

I know this happens with The Man, too. I feel wonderful when I'm with him. He's so strong and smart and protective, funny, fast, and physically impressive, and, well, other stuff. That wonderful feeling lasts about ten days. So if I see him at a minimum of every two weeks, I stay high.

When we head into three weeks, though, I start to see all the problems. He's covered in red flags. So many in fact that I wonder why he continues to see me, it's just all wrong, and then I get paranoid.

Today marks seven weeks since I've seen him. A date was canceled about 5.5 weeks ago and not rescheduled. Although I'm a little hurt that I'm not a higher priority than what he's doing, I know what's going on, and I understand, and I hope he succeeds, so that's not the problem. We have been keeping in touch. Just not literally touching.

The problem is that with such a (relatively) long separation, I'm beginning to forget the good. The red flags are flapping, and I'm wondering what I'm doing with him and why. I'm beginning to think that if I never saw him again, that might be a good thing, and I wouldn't be too broken up about it at all.

And then I look at the other men available to me, and I get depressed.

He has awakened parts of me I didn't know I had, and I never want to be put to sleep again.
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