8:40 p.m. - 2009-09-07
Understanding is a three edged sword

Yesterday an ex girlfriend emailed to remind me of the things I'd left behind at her home when we parted company. That was nearly a year ago. She also said that should I want to reclaim anything I shouldn’t feel awkward about coming around to pick them up. She also took the opportunity to say that she was very disappointed that I hadn't been in touch, or seemingly missed her, or had called to say hello, how have you been? We didn’t end on those kind of terms though. She must’ve forgotten.

I thought about why now…why after so much time had passed did she get in touch? Perhaps it was her way of checking to see if we could turn back the clock and maybe try again? Or maybe she was being brave about the situation and hoping we could perhaps try and salvage something worth while from the break up. A friendship perhaps? Maybe it was an olive branch of sorts? It all seemed too little, too late. It may just have been that she was having a clear out and wanted all trace of me gone, in effect, completely rid of me.

If my things were taking up space, she was welcome to dispose of them as she saw fit I said to her. I then said that I hadn’t missed anything I’d left behind. I didn’t mean that to sound so final but that’s how it sounded when I read it back to myself, and after I’d clicked the send button. I really didn’t mean to be so harsh.

Understanding is always a three edged sword when I part with a lover. There is her way, my way, and the truth. Loss does the strangest things to people and her counting the days since we parted didn't help my state of mind when she contacted me again. My truth was that all the time I was with her, I was still in love with someone else who I’d somehow managed to block out of my life. When we parted company, the former miraculously re-appeared only to break my heart one last time, as if it was her parting gift to me before she left for good. If I had ever hoped an ex lover would call me up again, it was her, but I’d have rather said goodbye on friendly terms to her than the mess she left behind. C’est La Vie.

Strangely enough, I know now that they both had forgotten what they asked of me when I was with them, the things that they knew I couldn’t give, and had forgotten the things I sacrificed for both of them respectively. Because of that, there are parts of myself I can't ever reclaim that both took from me. I waited and hoped for redemancy. It never came from either.