A CLEAN BREAK

I find saying Goodbye to almost anyone difficult. Even when I know I should, I would still prefer to let things fade away and die a natural death. 

I think that I have finally realized that making a clean break would have been better, although it has taken me an additional 4 and a half long years to learn this.

A reluctance to hurt someone’s feelings (possibly my own) is not reason enough to have to relive the memories of a bad experience from the past over and over again, because I was either unwilling or unable to make a final break.

In late September I talked about how UNFINISHED BUSINESS STALKS YOU. Not long after ward, the very thing I dreaded, a phone call I had been very carefully avoiding, came. At the end of it, I was more angry at myself than ever because I still had not finished with this person. I ranted and raved in my essay WHAT I SHOULD HAVE SAID. At the top of the list of What I Should Have Said was the word: GOODBYE.

Now a month later, Surprise! Surprise! another phone call. And here, I thought I had until Christmas until the next call. Nope, in the middle of another call, unexpectedly, he just had a few minutes to call me and tell me about his life. Just what I needed.

A few minutes later, however, I FINALLY, ended this particular strand of contact with people from my past that are still in my life, by belatedly saying that the time had come for us to say Goodbye.

I think that 4½ years after a split is quite long enough to politely listen to someone else tell you about their lives and confide in you. It is also long enough to have to relive the anger you feel at yourself for not finishing something that should have been in the distant past long ago.

Well, ‘Better Late Than Never’, I guess. Even the aftermath in some ways was better than usual. The self-loathing for being too weak to do something I knew I needed to do a long time ago, is less because this time, I did say something. I guess it is true that we do things when we are ready. Hopefully we also do them consistent with the kind of people we are.

I don’t shout or express anger often, so I was left upset that I might have expressed a lot more of the Anger I feel about this old relationship. There is also frustration with myself at not ending things much sooner even than 4½ years ago. In fact, the very long time since the breakup has almost been more frustrating than the relationship itself was.

Why then did I not say more about what I felt? I did not see much point in doing so. Somewhat like telling someone where to go when you quit a job; I am sure there is tremendous satisfaction at the time when you finally get to say what you really thought, but I sincerely doubt it is worth the longer term consequences.

Nothing would change what didn’t work before into some magical thing that suddenly did. Furthermore, I definitely did not want to revive the relationship.

He is happy to know me and called me Dear more than once, including after I told him it was time for us to say Goodbye. The sentiment however, was not mutual and had not been for years. It could not be after all that had happened, or not happened, at the time to have made it work in the first place.

Why then did I shed tears? First, I am as I said, not good at endings. I am even less experienced at being part of a relationship that is not relatively equal and cooperative. Second, I think I have never really gotten over the shock of not being appreciated and treated as an equal.

Strangely, only in this generation would a Woman expect reciprocity and equality to be part of our lives; earlier generations would not even have considered it possible.

Meanwhile, the new life, which followed the first stages of a new life one experiences after Widowhood, will continue; perhaps now however, with a few less pieces of Baggage.

Overall, I feel relief that I finally did what I should have done long ago and in a way consistent with my nature and beliefs. I am and continue to be (in the immortal words of Elton John) STILL STANDING. Now…for the next challenge.