This is becoming something of a holiday tradition for me to re-evaluate my life and alas my social life has been pretty consistently been found wanting. Ack. So, what to do? Come on, it’s me, of course I’m going to work through this with my writing. Problem with this one, however, was whether this particular problem would have been better served with silence instead of writing. Silence. Right. I don’t do silence very well. So, last week I started writing the following note to you-know-who, hoping to address the status of our relationship. At the moment I haven’t heard back from her, and know that I very well might not hear back from her. I hate this shit.

To recap, we broke up late last Spring and kept in some contact over the summer. Just before we’d broken up, she got her breast cancer diagnosis and that, obviously, weighed very heavily on both of us. Toward the end of summer I stepped up and tried to help her with a couple things around her place and thought seriously about moving closer to her, the distance between our places having been a frequent complaint of hers in the past. Then everything went on the back-burner when she went into surgery and began her recovery.

I met and spent time with her folks during the surgery and early-recovery days and spent a little time with the boys from coming over to work on her computer, etc. I felt like this was as close to a normal relationship as we had ever had. Then several weeks ago I had a very unsuccessful visit and since then daily communication has pretty much dropped off entirely. At one point I thought that I shouldn’t pester her too much and decided instead to just send a simple text-message in the morning, the analogy being that maybe we could keep this alive by just making sure the “flower” got just a couple drops of water every day. For whatever reason that was a failure, with almost no response coming from her except maybe once a week. And then when she did respond I almost immediately realized that I needed something a bit more than a single text-message a day. Ack. So five weeks after the surgery, the week before Thanksgiving, things seem to have come full-circle. Sorry, that was one hell-of-a recap… I’m just stalling… Anyway, here’s the note:

“Sorry to hear about Dan not getting the subpoena, but that would explain his recent cooperation. Beyond that it seems like you’re slowly but surely getting back to “normal” (define normal as you may). It was good chatting with you the other day. I’m not entirely sure what happened to our communication over the past couple weeks but it does kind’a bring home what Brian said to your mom about our “friendship,” saying that i was wanting more, but that you’re not ready for that. After our chat I felt like I had a small impression about how busy you’ve been and how hard it’s been for you to try to put things back together, balancing recovery with the need to work. Anyway, as i said, I’m glad that you’re getting somewhat back to normal.

“I think I’m going to see if taco beach is going to be open on Thanksgiving so that I can get my fill of football games before joining mich and the girls at the Quinby’s. I got the impression that going with you to your folks created too many problems for you and now that the boys might be with you, I’d be out of place at the family gathering. No worries. I’ve resolved in my heart that this is best for you, and it’d be a little inconsistent of me to make a fuss when I began this whole thing saying that all I wanted was to see you happy and to have what is best for you. The Lord obviously has something else for me and I have to quit fighting against his purposes. At least that’s the theory.

“Anyway, you and your boys will always be in my thoughts and prayers. It’s not the “normal” I would have preferred but I am good with this because I know you have those around you who love you unconditionally. It’s mostly a matter of who you are going to let “in” and how far you let them in. I know that you are so much usually in survival mode that you don’t think about any of this or don’t realize how much “choice” you have. You’ll get it. And God is going to remember His promise to give you the love you need. That’s a good promise to hold on to. jbb”

p.s., shortly after posting this I heard back from her and she wasn’t at all happy with my attempt to frame the situation as “normal.” She more or less handed me my ass and I felt entirely idiotic for my attempt to communicate. ack. Fail.