Final goodbyes

Sometimes we need to hear healing words from someone. I needed to hear that I am not broken. That my preoccupied attachment; that did not result from my choices, does not make me unlovable. It does not make me unreleasable. I found myself rifling through all the old emails Nathan sent me. The terrible and the awesome. All the cute things I could find. Myspace was like this mass communication we had-and sometimes it was all we had. The way he spoke to me made me feel like a whipped dog. I hid under any emotional furniture I could find-but mostly, mostly I just loved him til I thought my heart would beat out of my chest to find him, to help him. I let the horrid things he said go unchecked. I took all the abuse because I was needy, I was broken, and no one could ever want someone so damn wounded. I was wounded-but not wounded in a crippled, dilapidated, malfunctioning sort of way. No, I was wounded like the puppy who trips over her own feet trying to chase a butterfly.
I was wounded like the child who misjudges her weight on the tallest tree in the yard and falls flat with no one there to mend her.
So yes, I am wounded. I can see that it isn't always such a terrible thing to have wounds. Nathan was wounded too. I don't really know what made him lash out, what made him choose not to marry me before I got to the point  I did and left. But as my friends pointed out-something inside pleaded I walk away. In a moment of weakness (or strength) I walked-and boy did  I give myself hell for that.

The point here is that I haven't let it go. I was keeping records of all those feelings because I wanted to be able, always able, to go back and recall the feeling for him. With him I burst with enthusiasm and triumph-equally, I sunk to the lowest places of my entire existence. I always wanted to chronicle that so I could go back and feel again. Like I left all the real feelings when I left him. I think, in my mind, I was walking away from the only real thing I had ever or would ever feel-when I left him. I also went back many times. I felt like I was broken because he confirmed I was unloving-that I would sabotage everything I ever loved. I had done it when I was 14 and he said it was miraculous I ever got out of that pattern with him-but he always had faith I would go back to that.
I am not 14 anymore-and I won't go back. So if I actually want to stop sabotaging my relationships I need to let him go. All the memories, all the happiness and all the pain. I need to let it be the past and stop breathing life even into his memory because he is dead. The 14 year old I loved-is dead.
I watched him die.

I can attach to someone else, even if I could not attach to my mom or dad. I can rely on someone else, even if they were unreliable. I do not have to keep being afraid someone is dead just because they are out of sight. Maybe if I chant that mantra enough I can make it real to me.

And so i take the time here to write as I feel-
Nathan Douglas McCreless,
I know that I was cruel in my youth, but it was the best I could do at the time. I also know you were cruel and it was the best you could do. I love your smile and your writing and all the silly moments we shared in the wake of storms in our lives. I thank God you were there to help me through it. Thank you for that support and thank you for being my ally and allowing me to be yours. You hurt me so badly with the things you said to me and the way you treated me. I need to release that now. I forgive you for the way you treated me. I cannot accept you into my life again-or even those words as memories because they are toxic. I know you tried to be happy as best you could with what you have. With all that being said

Goodbye


-even if it is silent.
(I deleted my Myspace and with it all the communications. I didn't even read through them all. I hope I remember this, my strength in letting this go. It is time to stop holding it all in a vault and just release it. ) Thanks for reading
-Jem