Little Things

I knew the minute I started typing the first few letters that I was doing something I shouldn’t have been.  I guess the haphazard searches on Facebook before the New Year were not well thought out.  If I had just signed out of the account she blocked me from I would easily find the doorstep to the life of someone I used to know.

I felt fucking dirty. 

What in the hell was I doing? 

I had gone out of my way to bring my sorry ass up to New York for New Years and managed to find someone from my old job who would host me.  It was all for the sole purpose of delivering the note I wrote on the airplane, like I had done so many times before.  Fuck me did that ever blow up in my face.  Shortly after one in the morning I was stupidly arguing with her father via text message.  I don’t quite know what I was trying to prove to myself, but it didn’t serve its purpose.  I flew back from Philly later that week feeling like quite the fool.  I guess I wasn’t quite as resilient as I thought.

I didn’t give it much thought for the few months after that, why should I care about offending someone who cared so little for me?  I started thinking about it when her birthday came, for some reason we were all out and one of them made a foolish comment, “Here’s to the anniversary of the beginning of Pat’s trip back here.”  I left pretty shortly thereafter.  She had been in the back of my mind ever since.

It isn’t that I have some foolish thought in the back of my mind that we will somehow end up together.  I guess I have grown up a bit since I thought stupid things like that.  The thing that really bothered me was how someone who I had held in such high esteem and cared so much about could just do away with me on a moment’s notice.  No matter, in the end the only conclusion that allows me to live with myself is that I made an egregious set of mistakes that I must never repeat again…whether through self-isolation or some other method.

So that leaves me here, like a fool, looking her up on Facebook and wondering if I could find out anything more about her life these days.  I can’t fool anyone anymore, let alone myself; I miss her and wonder how she is.  I thought, for a fleeting moment, about writing her again.  The moment passed quickly when I played the tape through to conclusion.  I knew how she would respond, or rather how she would not respond.  The thought started to burn me once again.  I went out onto the back porch to smoke a cigarette, telling myself I should just go to bed and not bother writing any of this melodramatic shit down, but it didn’t seem I was ready quite yet.

I thought for a second how pathetic looking her up had been and as I pondered the slim odds that she had done the same I realized I was showing her the same disrespect I had exhibited from March 3^rd when I arrived to the time she kicked me out of that life.  I guess I never could understand what she wanted, could I?  I worshiped her, but was so blind to what she needed and was so in denial that what I was up to hurt her so.  It hurts because I lost the only woman I’ve ever really loved and it hurts that the pain contributed to my acting so childishly and pursuing her when she clearly wanted nothing more to do with me.  I guess that was my ego getting in the way again, wasn’t it?

“I love her like no one on this earth,” I often rationalized to myself, “someday she will come around and feel the same.”  How very delusional and foolish that I would assume the world revolved around me in such a manner.  I suppose that was the problem all along wasn’t it?  It sucks that I lost my lover, it sucks even more that I lost a friend of her caliber.  It would not be smart to take up that search again, I don’t dare take the risk of hurting myself in such a manner again…more importantly I can’t run the risk of becoming tempted to interfere in her life again.  I guess maybe this is part of my growing up, but it is time to let her go…regardless of how much I do and always will love her.

I can’t lie though, I miss my friend and the mistakes I have caused and never been able to truly apologize hurt me so.  Forgiveness for them, however, is not mine to solicit or even deserve.  Tonight I finally realize that the respect she deserves is what she had asked for when this happened.

“Respect my wishes and never contact me again.”  

As much as it pains me, it is long past time to oblige.