Love Divided By Five: Resolve

Resolve

            How do you feel about me ran across my lips before I could grab the words and force them back down my throat? I’ve always been one of those women who usually tend to think before she speaks. But this moment NOT one of those times. I couldn’t help myself. Word Vomit had hit me again.  I was tired—tired of being his pawn on his chess board.  Move her there check. Cross over to this side check. I was getting tired of that game. The subject of this phone call was a story of the infidelity that plagued our relationship.  I thought slapping the word “open” in front of “relationship” would make me feel better about the whole thing. But I was wrong.   The only thing it did was make me complain more.  I would go off on these rambles of woe is me and why can’t you stop.  Those conversations were never end well—I would be crying and Kent would hang up mad.

            As week passed since that conversation, I decided to change my behavior.  I worked slowly and strategically on how I could make this madness forming inside of my head stop. I asked myself was it me.  I went over it all in my mind.  And bam, one day, it hit me like a Mack truck.  This is all about me.  If things were going to change I was going to have to be the one to change them.  My brain raced with itself looking for the answer. It wasn’t until just before Thanksgiving it came to me. I had to be the one to start letting go. If I didn’t I would be the one still sitting here 10 years later wishing and hoping. I didn’t want to be that girl who spends years hanging on to the wrong moment in her life.  I just didn’t know if I had the strength to do what I needed to do. I needed to begin to let go.

            I gave myself a deadline.  Sunday, November 25^th.   I called it last phone call day. I planned and pondered. I would have to keep busy.   My daily ritual of calling him until I got an answer would be put to bed.  It was going to be hard, but I it was time.  I would rid myself of that hold I let him put on me.  The very thought of all this made me sick to my stomach.  We all want something that we can have, but this had gone too far. My brain was ready for the break.  There were enough things crammed in it for one semester.  I had to make room for the next semester’s worth of knowledge and thoughts of Kent were wasting good space.  I needed to fill up on useful and productive things.  Kent was about to lose his reign on my cranium. I was free.

            The fun part about all of this was that he had no idea what was going on.  The smart part of my plan was to not tell him—to stop that very day.  I wanted to see out how long it would take for him to figure it out.  Would he notice right away or would it take him weeks to notice that I stopped calling. I realized moving to Chicago was only the first part of the plan. To truly be free, I had to stick to my convictions and to stop calling. There would be no more extra effort on my part.  Relationships require two people.

            The first couple of days were hard. The next couple of days were surprisingly easy. I thought hey, I can do this.  I was sad but I knew it was just my heart trying to catch up to my brain.  I worked on school, I talked to other friends and I even started reading a book I was meaning to read. It was lovely.   I can get things done and not worry about what Kent was doing. I felt like I had just run a big race. I made it to the top of those steps like in Rocky and had done my dance. My brain was breaking free. But there was still that part of me that wanted answers.

            Those answers I need came in a form of an email.  I think if I would have received it any sooner, I probably would have had some false sense of security that things might change.  But now, the email gave me peace.  No more searching for how to put my unsettle feeling to bed. He stated it plainly and I was in a place to accept the truth.  We are friends and companions for life.  He has my back no matter what and will come to my aid at the drop of a dime.  It made me smile to just think that you could mean so much to a person and it not is about being in love. I understood now.  There was a resolve to my feelings. And yet they might be unrequited, that is alright with me because I have the strength and the power to move on.

“Disappointment is not always the end of something new. Devastation can lead you to a magical place. But it is in your resolve that you find things about yourself you never known you had within you.  And all these things make you a person who is able to LOVE.”

D.