Aoife Henry

First, I was infatuated with the anticipation, the novelty, the courtship you offered, and the best self you put forward, as we all do in the early stages of a relationship.

Then, we no longer shared a casual connection, but we didn’t know what had taken its place. I felt the low hum of a yearning for someone secure, who wanted me to be in their life. But you couldn’t be that for me, and I was too afraid to ask directly, because I knew the answer already, from all the times I had prodded you indirectly. We were in a steady state despite this underlying insecurity. You hinted at security on occasion, but not consistently enough to rely upon. Your best self relaxed into the True You, often loving and affectionate, sometimes cutting and combative. I could tolerate that for a time. I could fold and let go. It seemed like a worthwhile concession once. I wouldn’t make that concession now.

Towards the end, we were slow dancing in a burning room. I was in love with a Fiction that you could not be, and in conversation and contemplation we both came to terms with this. My Fiction received my love with gratitude and appreciation, and reciprocated it. My Fiction turned around and grinned goofily when I entered the room, and bounded over to kiss me and hug me. My Fiction was brought to tears when I made them gifts of song covers, letters and notes. My Fiction was endlessly curious to know the inner workings of soul, and read my blog posts hungrily. My Fiction loved me and lusted after me deeply and wanted to make sure that I knew that every time they got the opportunity to tell me. So we talked and cried and held each-other. The Real You was frustrated that I couldn’t understand you without guidance. I was confused that you expected me to. You wanted to be heard, but you forgot to listen sometime. I wanted to feel that you loved me. You couldn’t show me that love anymore. I still don’t know why. Perhaps I never will.

Finally, I was unafraid to ask the questions to which I wanted the answers, and when, in time, you answered, the eroded remains of my faith in Fiction crumbled softly. We saw clearly that there was the Real You, the Real Me, and the impassable cracks that connected us.

Now, we are more alien to eachother than strangers. I wish it weren’t so. I wonder, hope even, that this jarring transition from intimacy to eschewal is a necessary component of love and loss. I wait and get on with things as the real estate I allocated to you in my brain falls apart and is reclaimed by the wilderness of new loves, old friends, work and the everyday storm thoughts and feelings. What you wait for, I don’t know, and I have to make peace with that. The questions arise all the same. Is that painting of the bunnies I got you for your birthday still on your wall? Are you angry with me or do you miss me? What is it that you need to process? I thought you wanted this too. That time you held me when I cried. The love-letters you used to send. The quiet, fleeting, but nonetheless stinging episodes of frustration you pitched my way when I didn’t expect it.

The memories of my infatuation with Fiction will not fade. Nor will the grievances of the Fiction you could not be. I hope that the memories of the Real You that I loved will remain, albeit tainted with grief. But I love myself and I always will. I can offer myself all of the love that Fiction would have, and receive it all in kind. And I know that I deserve people who love me at least as much as I do. I have grown with you and without you. I have learned what I need and deserve from what you could give and what you could not. I know that I will not concede my personality to conform to the Fiction of another, nor have them concede theirs for me in order to act out the Fiction I need. I know what I can tolerate, what I cannot tolerate, and what I am willing to learn to tolerate. I know that for a time the Real I loved you and that the Real You loved me, and that this transition is for the better because those truths no longer hold.

The truth is, that underlying the storm of feelings is rejection. Firstly because, for a time, I was convinced that I could overlook your flaws and call you mine, but you didn’t feel the same way. I was willing to tolerate walking on tiptoe, feeding you unreservedly with love and brushing off your agitation, and my confusion as to what I had done to incite it. Now I sit with a different confusion – one that stems from that icy gust of a transition from partners to aliens and the sense that we were never really on the same page. Secondly, while I know that I’m ‘hot property’ (thank you CG for this nifty catchphrase), there is a part of me that doubts whether anyone wants to be mine, and me theirs.

I don’t regret doing what I wanted even though you wished I wouldn’t, being myself even if it aggravated you, or extending my love to you, even when I had no love left to give. I was willing to burn up the last of my love kindling to know that I tried. And when there was nothing more to try for, I don’t regret that we stopped trying. There was nothing more to burn. Those embers glow now as they use the last of the fuel I gave them.

I thank you for your affection, your touch, your empathy, your playfulness, your support.

I wish you the love we shared once but could not sustain, the understanding I wanted to offer you but you couldn’t teach me, freedom from the shame that I couldn’t discern and the answer I don’t think you had for me – what it is that you want from love and what you are willing to do for it.