So, like I said it's been many months, but not quite a year, since The Cowboy bailed his 5th and final time. Each time I've been kicked to the proverbial curb I've found it a little bit harder to deal, to heal, to figure out how to move to the next stage, which I am hoping is friendship. That's something I've always believed in: that (unless your ex is truly a BAD PERSON or did something WHOLY UNFORGIVABLE) people should be able to eventually become friends with their exes. Ironically this was the first big fight between The Cowboy and I in our early days when I insisted on trying to establish a friendship with T.E. Cowboy's reaction to this was pretty simple: "Why would you do that? Nobody should ever do that. Now allow me to do my ceremonial unreasonable-freak-out-dance."
I disagreed. We fought a bit. But eventually Cowboy made his peace with the idea and T.E. and I made a friendship. It was cool.
Cut to the first couple of times Cowboy dumped me - almost immediately after saying "I don't wanna do this" he was saying "but I do wanna be friends." Apparently when he stood to benefit from the idea it suddenly had merit. Value even!
But I told him then: too soon. I needed time to figure out that transition. Because as strongly as I believe in this idea of exes being friends, I also believe that you can't just flip a switch. We're talking emotions here, people; feelings and the like. They have their own schedule and will be rushed by no man. Or woman either.
Or maybe think of it like chemistry. When you're freshly dumped you're one very specific chemical compound, with your atoms and your... nuclei? Is that a chemistry thing? You've got a very specific atomic number, and that doesn't just CHANGE. It can change, but it takes some stuff to happen first. In chemistry it's...
Ok, I'll be honest, I'm not totally sure what changes things in chemistry, but I am sure there's stuff. Relationships are the same way. Something has to be added to the situation in order to change the periodic element of ex-girlfriend (let's call that EX) into that of friend (we'll call that.. is BFF already a periodic thing?) With relationships what's needed is time, folks. Good, old fashioned time.
I asked for time each time I got dumped. "Just give me time, please, to process stuff. Make my peace. Find the paths to forgiveness, to healing." It never seemed like an unreasonable request - I'd been dumped for doing nothing wrong, and though lots of folks might tell a person to fuck-off and die I was just saying I needed time. But he just couldn't do it. He couldn't make my needs his priority.
Of course it always backfired on him because neither of us were ready to move on to friendship, so when we were mashed back together it would always rekindle fires that hadn't been allowed to die out (I'm pretty sure I'm mixing a lot of incompatible science metaphors here with mashing and rekindling. Things that mash normally don't kindle.) and we'd be back together within weeks. Now, as the dumpee that was what I thought I wanted. I hadn't asked to end things and I was still plenty smitten, so when those doors inched back open I was definitely not gonna be the one to close them.
If my stupid Magic Eight Ball had been worth a damn I would have known to slam those suckers sooooo stinkin' fast.
Still, I was consistent in my request, and he in his ignoring of it. So, we were consistent. That's something, right? Yeah, that's definitely a thing...
This last time I knew that we were done done. That there was no going back this time for a variety of reasons (which I just might share with you guys some other time if I find myself all pissy and/or drunk) and so I had to have that time. I decided through 100% unscientific methods to set a goal of one year. I wouldn't respond or make contact with T.C. for one year, in hopes that I'd be able to make peace with it all in that time. And when I say "make peace with it all" I mean all. I'm really good at finding ways to forgive when I'm in the relationship, because you have to in order to keep things going. But I've learned about myself that once I finally stop forgiving of the stuff then it ALL counts. I go back through the archives and I find all the truly shitty things that I forgave, and I throw each and every flammable one of them onto the fire. AND I DANCE NAKED AROUND THAT BONFIRE, BABY, UNTIL IT ALL LOSES IT'S POWER!!!
So here we are at around 8 months - 4 more to go. (because maths!) Cowboy seems to have finally given up his consistency, sending his last reach-out about a month ago. (for those of you still counting on me to do the necessary maths, that's 7 months of contact before he backed off.) So I'm just now FINALLY starting to do that processing and stuff. Oh, and here's a delightful surprise: it's not fun! Not at all! Nope, not a drop of fun to be had... But I'mma stick with it. Due to science.
I disagreed. We fought a bit. But eventually Cowboy made his peace with the idea and T.E. and I made a friendship. It was cool.
Cut to the first couple of times Cowboy dumped me - almost immediately after saying "I don't wanna do this" he was saying "but I do wanna be friends." Apparently when he stood to benefit from the idea it suddenly had merit. Value even!
But I told him then: too soon. I needed time to figure out that transition. Because as strongly as I believe in this idea of exes being friends, I also believe that you can't just flip a switch. We're talking emotions here, people; feelings and the like. They have their own schedule and will be rushed by no man. Or woman either.
Or maybe think of it like chemistry. When you're freshly dumped you're one very specific chemical compound, with your atoms and your... nuclei? Is that a chemistry thing? You've got a very specific atomic number, and that doesn't just CHANGE. It can change, but it takes some stuff to happen first. In chemistry it's...
Ok, I'll be honest, I'm not totally sure what changes things in chemistry, but I am sure there's stuff. Relationships are the same way. Something has to be added to the situation in order to change the periodic element of ex-girlfriend (let's call that EX) into that of friend (we'll call that.. is BFF already a periodic thing?) With relationships what's needed is time, folks. Good, old fashioned time.
I asked for time each time I got dumped. "Just give me time, please, to process stuff. Make my peace. Find the paths to forgiveness, to healing." It never seemed like an unreasonable request - I'd been dumped for doing nothing wrong, and though lots of folks might tell a person to fuck-off and die I was just saying I needed time. But he just couldn't do it. He couldn't make my needs his priority.
Of course it always backfired on him because neither of us were ready to move on to friendship, so when we were mashed back together it would always rekindle fires that hadn't been allowed to die out (I'm pretty sure I'm mixing a lot of incompatible science metaphors here with mashing and rekindling. Things that mash normally don't kindle.) and we'd be back together within weeks. Now, as the dumpee that was what I thought I wanted. I hadn't asked to end things and I was still plenty smitten, so when those doors inched back open I was definitely not gonna be the one to close them.
If my stupid Magic Eight Ball had been worth a damn I would have known to slam those suckers sooooo stinkin' fast.
Still, I was consistent in my request, and he in his ignoring of it. So, we were consistent. That's something, right? Yeah, that's definitely a thing...
This last time I knew that we were done done. That there was no going back this time for a variety of reasons (which I just might share with you guys some other time if I find myself all pissy and/or drunk) and so I had to have that time. I decided through 100% unscientific methods to set a goal of one year. I wouldn't respond or make contact with T.C. for one year, in hopes that I'd be able to make peace with it all in that time. And when I say "make peace with it all" I mean all. I'm really good at finding ways to forgive when I'm in the relationship, because you have to in order to keep things going. But I've learned about myself that once I finally stop forgiving of the stuff then it ALL counts. I go back through the archives and I find all the truly shitty things that I forgave, and I throw each and every flammable one of them onto the fire. AND I DANCE NAKED AROUND THAT BONFIRE, BABY, UNTIL IT ALL LOSES IT'S POWER!!!
So here we are at around 8 months - 4 more to go. (because maths!) Cowboy seems to have finally given up his consistency, sending his last reach-out about a month ago. (for those of you still counting on me to do the necessary maths, that's 7 months of contact before he backed off.) So I'm just now FINALLY starting to do that processing and stuff. Oh, and here's a delightful surprise: it's not fun! Not at all! Nope, not a drop of fun to be had... But I'mma stick with it. Due to science.
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