Well, if ever a march were forced to be taken, I suppose that it is best taken with cocktails, but regardless it is a forced march nonetheless (and too many cocktails make one walk crookedly and talk funny).
Lame attempts at humor aside, I am not sure how breakups in this brave new adult world are generally supposed to go - maybe they are supposed to involve a lot of screaming and hurling of objects, or perhaps just quiet whimpering and lots of loud nose-blowing, or multiple trips to various strip clubs and other such exciting establishments - but I am fairly certain that, like most everything else that you and I do together, our way is atypical. And, as such, like everything I do, it is certainly not marked by its brevity. But imperfect as our process may be, I think it is one that is uniquely ours and it will get us to where we need to be, and for that I am grateful.
Perhaps one cocktail too deep (begrudgingly, I neither admit nor deny that you were right ;)), I lost my focus (and quite a bit of saline) last night trying to say what I wanted to say. But I appreciate having been given the time to say it (or blurt it, as the case may be). It was a lot to take in at one time, and, without question, so much of it should have been shared so much sooner.
It is to my absolute horror that it was only yesterday that you learned that I was, if nothing else, self-aware. As is obvious, I am not quick to claim any positive qualities as uniquely my own, but "self-aware" definitely would have been one of them. It is a phrase that I hear very often from many of my friends in describing me to myself. In fact, as irony would have it, a friend used it in conversation in such a way just yesterday afternoon. It makes me realize that I was only letting you date part of me, and that I was presumptuous in assuming (1) that part of me would be sufficient, and (2) that I knew which part was the "better" part. My personal flaws/the baggage I carry with me through this life gall me because of some misguided sense I have that people expect me to be perfect. More precisely, that anyone who is to love me needs to believe me perfect. But it is quickly dawning on me, a day late and a dollar short, that this monogrammed emotional luggage of mine is exactly what makes me who I am. The wry wit, the expressiveness, the empathy of which I am capable - all of the things within me which make me proud - all come from the difficult and not so perfect things in my background. Intimacy is a package deal, not an a la carte option. I failed to see it.
A few cocktails in, and feeling sorry for myself, I paint the picture as to my attitude towards myself as rather bleak, but the cold light of morning (and the wicked hangover... should've eaten something. Oops.) make me realize I was perhaps a little bit melodramatic. I still have a long road ahead of me in learning to be kinder to myself and open with others, but it is one upon which I am an eager traveler, and eventually, when told things twenty or thirty thousand times, I do begin to get certain things through my thick head.
Even in this cold sober light of morning, I hurt. There is really no way around it. Would that there were a palliative I could take to make it all immediately go away. (Ah, better living through chemistry.) I am filled with regrets and hopes and wishes and angst and sadness and all the rest of the usual suspects, and they weigh heavily. But with the light of morning, also comes my renewed belief that, if your offer is still open, given patience, and with support and effort, we can continue to be friends.
You are important to me. That will never change.
Though it comes perilously close to sounding like a poor hip-hop channeling of a cheesy Carly Simon song, it is nonethless true that whether caught in the rain on a lonely street corner late at night, or just in need of bail money, I will always come get you.
besos, c
