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