This Time Was Different

I knew better. Despite what he said. Despite what he did. Despite what he wanted me to believe. I knew, in the way a woman always does, that he had long moved on from the bond we once shared. And while I predicted the day would eventually come where we’d be forced to go our separate ways, the piece of my heart that always saw the best in him hoped he would have handled it differently.

It was a game we played, he and I. He pretended he was committed to giving “us” a chance. I pretended he would actually try, and in the end we’d both pretend that the two of us were never meant to be. It was a cyclical conundrum of sorts. A bit of a merry-go-round of emotions that always led me back to the same place: tempted to see if we had what it takes, but woefully aware of the probability it’d never last.

But this time was different.

This time the merry-go-round stopped spinning before I was ready to get off, and after two years of silly playground antics in the city known to break hearts, it was time to admit that mine had fallen victim.

How did I get here? I wasn’t quite sure. But when I looked back at our teen- like affair, it was painfully obvious that the one thing I always wanted, was the one thing that was always missing. In between his assertions of wanting more and excuses for why he couldn’t provide it, I was left in limbo, hoping that one day he would actually give us – time.

I explained it away, justifying inconsistencies with reasons I knew held no weight. Claiming that both of our hearts were connected in this woven web of uncertainty and fear, that led us to press the breaks on pursuing something much greater. But the truth was, I simply wasn’t his person, and somehow my heart would have to untangle itself from the crisscrossing lines his alternative facts had formed.

It was time to break free. So I did. And just as I opened my eyes to his lies, my rose-colored glasses went missing. No longer did I see the man who won me over with his charm. Instead what stood before me, was a figure I wasn’t quite sure I knew. Caught up in the idea of his stated intentions, I realized I had latched on to what he said, and blissfully ignored what he did.

Was any of it real? I couldn’t say for sure. But the more I looked back, the more I had to admit that the reason we had gotten as far as we did, was solely because I refused to let go. He owned my heart in a way not even I was aware of; toying with it, taking it for granted, mistreating it for his gain, and manipulating it so covertly, I could not recognize it for what it was. All the while I was holding on for dear life, and he had long let go.

I guess it wasn’t in the cards. Actually – time had proven that. And it had also proven that although I made him out to be the right guy for my future, he was best suited to be a guy of my past. In his inability to be honest about his present, I found the courage to admit our time was up.

I can’t say for sure why he didn’t tell me. Maybe he couldn’t muster up the strength to confess he’d moved on. Maybe his inflated ego induced this idea that the truth would hurt me beyond repair. Maybe he thought that if he out-right admitted I wasn’t “the one”, my ego would be bruised forever. Or maybe, just maybe, he feared that if he confessed his need for something a little different, a little simpler, my heart would implode.

Whatever it was, he chose to secretly move on to the woman who offered convenience, with a little less depth and a lot less sophistication. And though I’m disappointed he didn’t have the soul to tell me, the part of me that still loves him, wishes him well.

There was a time when I was convinced we could have changed the ending. That we could have landed on the same page long enough to write an entire book. And now I ask myself, “at what cost?” I had reluctantly played all the games I had energy for. Despite what he said, he’d never give us a chance and despite what my heart wanted, my head conceded the memories of our never-quite-there romance were all she wrote.

He’s the guy I never expected to fall for, but happily watched as I did. Now as I dust myself off, attend to the scrapes, and Band-Aid the wounds his presence left behind, I find solace in knowing that the bruises will heal in their own time. They say love is a losing game, and that’s okay. God promised me something amazing while reminding me that the road to restoration may hurt, but these things happen.

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The Discovery

I thought I could take it. Seeing her smile brought on by his face. Her laugh, a reaction to his voice. Her happiness a reflection of his presence. And after months of solid speculation, I thought I could stomach the day I heard him say “I’m with somebody.” But he refused. Deflecting queries of his relationship with reassuring words that suggested we still had a chance. And so instead of the truth coming from his lips to my ears, I had to accept that what I saw in countless pictures and recorded moments was not simply a figment of my imagination or a fabricated story I had created to protect my heart, but actually the truth he never could bring himself to tell me.

My feelings raw, I tried to escape the anxiety building in my body the day my assumptions became reality, but in that moment my heart tingled with brokenness and I hated him in a way I never had before. Seething with the confirmation that everything I wanted he gave to somebody else. Overwhelmed by his blatant disregard for how I’d feel, or deal with the evidence that lay before me.

I guess he thought I was blind. That I hadn’t noticed the flowers he gave her just days after our October meeting or the Christmas tree they decorated together. Maybe I had missed the fact that his “new hobby” – floral arranging – always found a place on her kitchen table, directly under a sign that read, “what I love most about my home is who I share it with.” I guess he thought I overlooked the fact that his friends were slowly becoming hers, that he supported her in a way that I had only dreamed, spent time with her like I had always wished and loved her in a way that I had only hoped for.

In his eyes, my heart was created for his sport, solely existing for his entertainment. And I reaffirmed that with silent tears and unvoiced sentiments. Verbally keeping him at a distance while still remaining hopeful that he would one day find his way back to me, the woman he had met two years prior in a dimly lit bar in Brooklyn, but childishly ran away from with excuses, broken promises and misguided actions. Maybe he was my BIG, and I, like Carrie, had to see our Sex and the City storyline out to the very end. Knowing that when the closing credits rolled we would be together, both confirming that from the very start, “It was always you.”

I’d loved him for two long years. In the beginning accepting his inconsistencies for “busy” and his flakiness for character flaws too far out of his control. Foolishly longing for the day that he would get it together, wake up from his youthful slumber and realize that in this life, even though we fail, it’s okay to try again. I was nothing like his ex-wife. At least that’s what I told myself, while naively reassuring my heart that we could make this love “thing” work.

In the end I was forced to accept that our union was never meant to be. That his inconsistencies were flagrant, his lies deliberate and his actions a direct reflection of how he felt about me. Seeing the flashing videos of his smile matched with hers confirmed that.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll always love him. If ten years from now I’ll still ask myself “what if.” In my next relationship if I’ll wonder how he’s doing or if in this next chapter – the one that excludes him –  there will ever come a time where he’ll pick up the phone to say “I’m sorry,” with no motive other than to offer up a genuine apology for the way he so brazenly betrayed my heart.

All the times he hurt me with ignored texts, missed engagements, missed birthdays, weeks of absence, and lofty tales of “us” actually becoming an “us” couldn’t prepare me for the final nail in the coffin; a weekend trip to the Caribbean – with her. I had tried and prayed tirelessly for well over a year to put this unrequited romance to bed, but I guess seeing her there on an island with him when just last year he was on an island with me made “the end” all too real.

This love thing is hard work. It’s complicated. At times it’s deceitful and down-right infuriating. And it’s not that I ever saw it as anything different, but I just thought by now I would have gotten it right. That I had kissed all the frogs I needed to kiss and I, the Jersey girl with a heart of gold, was ready for “The One.”

My father always said “God gives us free will. But when we choose, choose life. And choose life more abundantly.” So that’s what I choose to do. To move forward from this disillusioned past, live fully in the present and be hopeful for the future. In this life we’ll all have heartbreak. But there’s a point where we must accept, as I have, that these things happen.

 

 

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