Blog #23
Time heals all wounds, so they say. Especially, wounds of the heart. Exactly how much Time, however, “they”, conveniently, left out of the prescription. That’s because no one really knows for sure. Time, although tested and true, has never been able to be reduced down to an exact science. It‘s mysterious healing powers are far beyond something you could locate under a microscope or test chemically in a tube. Dosage must be determined on a case to case basis. Not exactly the certainty one would hope for when trying to mend a broken heart but the best you’re going to get.
In the revelry of our new found friendship, I had been too caught up to stop and think about the obvious; Time. After a break up, how much breathing room do you need before you become entangled in each other’s lives again? How much Time do you need to be O.K. with the fact that your Ex is dating? Or rather, in this case, how much time do you need before you’re O.K. with your Ex dating your friend?
Which brings me to Darcy. I liked Darcy. We came out of the closet at almost the exact same time and had become relatively close over the past 6 months. I could usually count on the fact that, come the weekend, my cell phone would be blinking her name with the message “Brunch??“ waiting for me in my inbox like clockwork. Darcy looooved brunch. Well, she loved mimosas and the fact that it was totally acceptable, if not expected to have a glass of champagnes before noon. I always found her love of champagne funny, in an endearing sort of way, as her personality matched perfectly with the bubbles floating in her glass. She was light and airy and full of bubbly laughter. The sort of girl that got along with everyone. She was pretty but not intimidatingly beautiful enough to make other girls not like her. You could say being newbies served as a sort of bond between the two of us and we had grown accustomed to hanging out on a pretty regular basis along with our circle of friends.
As it turns out, Alice and Darcy were hanging out on the regular as well. Just the two of them. Just Alice and Darcy. Now, I thought this to be perfectly normal and platonic at the time. I was doing the same with our friend Katie. When going through a break up it is only natural to try and fill the void left by your Ex with all the friends that you blew off when you were in love. So, when Alice called me one day to explain why she and Darcy had left early the night before from a party that we were all at, I was completely caught off guard to discover the reason.
“Darcy felt uncomfortable”. That’s what Alice said. I guess I should have known what that meant, but as a new comer to this parallel universe it never occurred to me that the two of them showing up together was at all weird or any indication that something might be going on between them. Partly in fact because Alice was still, somewhat, trying to win me back but, mostly, because I was painfully unaware of the most prevalent and dangerous of all the Lesbian curses (and there are many); Falling in love with your best friend. Or at the very least, sleeping with them. This damn curse would eventually serve as my life long arch nemesis as well as something I can always count on to bite me in the ass but in that moment, I was utterly clueless.
“What do you mean she felt uncomfortable”, I asked with the purest of innocence. “Why would she feel weird? I know you guys are just friends”.
Her response: “Well, for now we are”.
Whaaaaaaaat?????????
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing OR what I was feeling for that matter. I mean, I, in no way, wanted to get back together with her but she was still mine. She was MY Alice. Mine and mine alone. I was not prepared in the slightest to move over and let Darcy take my place in her life. We had just begun our friendship, we were just starting to work out the kinks. We had a certain amount of ownership for one anther that had not completely dissipated yet. She couldn’t just go and pull the proverbial rug out from under my feet like that. I felt dizzy, sick, like I couldn’t breathe. There was a safety and a sense of comfort and unconditional love when Alice was near that I had waited my whole life to find. And Darcy couldn’t have it!
I guess I knew that eventually this day would come but I thought I would have more Time. I needed more Time, more of it’s medicinal potency before I could stomach the passing of the baton.
I was only mid-treatment for god‘s sake. We were mid treatment. The Time that had passed already had done wonders and we were in a good place. I was actually ready and willing to accept her dating someone else. Someone I didn’t know, that is. Someone who I could pretend was totally lame and unattractive and in no way a threat to our friendship. Someone who I could convince myself was just a rebound, someone for Alice to have a little fun with but would never be serious about. This was Darcy, though. This is someone I knew that was pretty and smart and fun and completely capable of meaning more to Alice than I did. I just wasn’t ready for that. I wondered, would interrupting my medicine result in permanent relationship damage? If Time was what you needed to move on and let go, for the pain and resentment to disappear, would disrupting treatment insure them to linger in my bones forever?
I guess only Time would tell. What I did know, however, was an alternate cure for getting over a past relationship. Falling for someone else! As chance would have it, the girl I had been secretly crushing on was about to become single as well. And as luck would have it, she had her eye on me.
Lesbian X
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
The Friendship
Blog #22
One of my favorite psychoanalytic statements goes as follows:
“Insanity is repeating the same act over and over again while expecting a different result.”
This simple yet brilliant observation was not only a revelation in behavior, it had the potential to be a saving grace to relationship repeat offenders such as myself. It was a whole new religion as far as I was concerned and something I wish would have been mentioned to me a long time ago. Much like “He/She’s just not that into you” was an awakening for women everywhere to see a bad relationship for what it was and move on, this statement had the power to slap some serious sense into people who insisted on going back for seconds. As if the bullshit they had suffered through the first time just wasn’t enough.
Alice and I had, in fact, officially gotten back together but surprise surprise, that relationship was short lived. In the time we were apart , I had managed to convince myself, along with a little help from Alice, that things would be different this time around. Now, the rational part of my brain knew the likely hood of that actually being the case was ridiculous and probably not going to happen. The romantic in me, however, just wanted to believe that love would conquer all. Unfortunately, Alice and Me; “the sequel”, ended up being almost a bigger disaster that the original version.
When I look back, the whole thing should have been shut down in pre-production. I mean, the signs were all there…..difficult leading lady, fighting on the set, no real fan base from the first release. I would like to chalk it up to a “rookie mistake” but this was not my first feature film, so to speak. The refusal to learn my lesson the first time seemed to be a pattern I had been slowly perfecting over time with men and now a destructive tendency I was bringing into the new phase of my life with women. It was role I had played one too many times before and for fear of being pigeon held in this nightmare of a part for the remainder of my career and I realized that I needed to draw a fine line between “giving it your all” and just plain being an idiot. Or INSANE, as the case might be.
This relationship could have dragged on for years but in a desperate attempt to have some resemblance of control I decided after a few months of reconciliation that I had to put an end to the madness for both our sakes. Although, I wanted to fight for the relationship, I knew deep down that we were both kidding ourselves and I began to wonder why we were holding on to this dead relationship for dear life. Neither one of us were happy. What was it then that had us so terrified to let go? Was it simply a matter of true love? Were we masochists? Or were we just afraid to be alone? I didn’t know the answer. All I knew was that it was time to grow up and see the situation for what it really was; two people who just were not meant to me.
As hard of a decision as that was at the time, I knew in the pit of my stomach that it was bigger than just being the end of something. It was the beginning of me taking control of my life. It was the start of saying “No” to my toxic past and “Yes” to my healthy future.
And so I ended it for good with Alice.
But, much like the decision had been the beginning of something better for myself, I soon discovered that it was also the beginning of a better relationship for me and Alice. As this was my first serious commitment in the lesbian world, I was totally unprepared for what would grow in place of all that had seemingly died. When a beak up occurred in a heterosexual relationship, or at least the ones I had been involved in, the love you shared with the other person was just tossed out like garbage; lost forever, never to be thought of again. That had always seemed such a waste to me. To care for and nurture this magical force that existed between you and another human being only to discard it like something that was repulsive or a nuisance or even replaceable seemed entirely tragic and reckless. Even the relationships that ended mutually with limited hurt and resentment were, at best, packaged away like old family photographs to be stored somewhere safe and maybe, just maybe, be reflected on in old age.
I didn’t want our love thrown out or collecting dust. It didn’t deserve to be boxed away and forgotten. I wanted to save it and celebrate it and hold it close to my heart forever
Thankfully, so did Alice. What blossomed between us was a freindship, a deep connected friendship that only comes after you have been truly intamite with someone in all aspects of your life. It was better that I could have ever hoped for. Instead of feeling discarded I felt more loved than ever. I knew this was the beginning of a life long friendship. What I didn’t know, was how much that friendship was about to be tested in the coming months…..
Lesbian X
One of my favorite psychoanalytic statements goes as follows:
“Insanity is repeating the same act over and over again while expecting a different result.”
This simple yet brilliant observation was not only a revelation in behavior, it had the potential to be a saving grace to relationship repeat offenders such as myself. It was a whole new religion as far as I was concerned and something I wish would have been mentioned to me a long time ago. Much like “He/She’s just not that into you” was an awakening for women everywhere to see a bad relationship for what it was and move on, this statement had the power to slap some serious sense into people who insisted on going back for seconds. As if the bullshit they had suffered through the first time just wasn’t enough.
Alice and I had, in fact, officially gotten back together but surprise surprise, that relationship was short lived. In the time we were apart , I had managed to convince myself, along with a little help from Alice, that things would be different this time around. Now, the rational part of my brain knew the likely hood of that actually being the case was ridiculous and probably not going to happen. The romantic in me, however, just wanted to believe that love would conquer all. Unfortunately, Alice and Me; “the sequel”, ended up being almost a bigger disaster that the original version.
When I look back, the whole thing should have been shut down in pre-production. I mean, the signs were all there…..difficult leading lady, fighting on the set, no real fan base from the first release. I would like to chalk it up to a “rookie mistake” but this was not my first feature film, so to speak. The refusal to learn my lesson the first time seemed to be a pattern I had been slowly perfecting over time with men and now a destructive tendency I was bringing into the new phase of my life with women. It was role I had played one too many times before and for fear of being pigeon held in this nightmare of a part for the remainder of my career and I realized that I needed to draw a fine line between “giving it your all” and just plain being an idiot. Or INSANE, as the case might be.
This relationship could have dragged on for years but in a desperate attempt to have some resemblance of control I decided after a few months of reconciliation that I had to put an end to the madness for both our sakes. Although, I wanted to fight for the relationship, I knew deep down that we were both kidding ourselves and I began to wonder why we were holding on to this dead relationship for dear life. Neither one of us were happy. What was it then that had us so terrified to let go? Was it simply a matter of true love? Were we masochists? Or were we just afraid to be alone? I didn’t know the answer. All I knew was that it was time to grow up and see the situation for what it really was; two people who just were not meant to me.
As hard of a decision as that was at the time, I knew in the pit of my stomach that it was bigger than just being the end of something. It was the beginning of me taking control of my life. It was the start of saying “No” to my toxic past and “Yes” to my healthy future.
And so I ended it for good with Alice.
But, much like the decision had been the beginning of something better for myself, I soon discovered that it was also the beginning of a better relationship for me and Alice. As this was my first serious commitment in the lesbian world, I was totally unprepared for what would grow in place of all that had seemingly died. When a beak up occurred in a heterosexual relationship, or at least the ones I had been involved in, the love you shared with the other person was just tossed out like garbage; lost forever, never to be thought of again. That had always seemed such a waste to me. To care for and nurture this magical force that existed between you and another human being only to discard it like something that was repulsive or a nuisance or even replaceable seemed entirely tragic and reckless. Even the relationships that ended mutually with limited hurt and resentment were, at best, packaged away like old family photographs to be stored somewhere safe and maybe, just maybe, be reflected on in old age.
I didn’t want our love thrown out or collecting dust. It didn’t deserve to be boxed away and forgotten. I wanted to save it and celebrate it and hold it close to my heart forever
Thankfully, so did Alice. What blossomed between us was a freindship, a deep connected friendship that only comes after you have been truly intamite with someone in all aspects of your life. It was better that I could have ever hoped for. Instead of feeling discarded I felt more loved than ever. I knew this was the beginning of a life long friendship. What I didn’t know, was how much that friendship was about to be tested in the coming months…..
Lesbian X
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