I feel somewhat cruddy at the moment. As I mentioned in an earlier post, right before Thanksgiving, the relationship I was in ended. It came as somewhat of a surprise. That there were some issues wasn’t, but that it was time to walk away from the relationship was a surprise. While the relationship was still fairly young time wise, it was pretty intense emotionally. But still there was a distance between us, that we weren’t able to overcome. Being that J lives in Portland and I’m still in LA, there is the obvious physical distance. Not so obvious, was little rifts that opened up as we navigated our feelings and the intensity of the relationship.
The break up happened under the guise of taking a step back from things for a breather or something…but during the course of the conversation soon ended up as a full fledged break up. This was also surprising to me…because just a couple weeks earlier, we were still talking about the possibility of marriage and a family in the somewhat near future. Unfortunately for me, the decision to end things had already been made by her, even though she wasn’t completely ready to admit it at first (but did by the end of the night).
So here it was, Monday night, and I was supposed to travel to Portland (via Seattle) that Thursday, so that we could spend Thanksgiving weekend with each other. But now, that wasn’t going to happen. We had plane tickets purchased (I had purchased a flight up to Seattle, and she had purchased a ticket for me to get home from Portland the next Monday morning). Initially, we had left the conversation with lets think about stuff for a day or so and see if we would still do the trip in order to beging to navigate what our future relationship would be like. However, before we had a chance to talk about things, Tuesday night, she went ahead and cancelled my flight home. That in itself wasn’t a huge problem (even though I would have liked to talk about it before we cancelled), but because she cancelled the flight online, the credit for ticket went to me. So now I’m left with a one way ticket to Seattle, and a credit that I’ve told her I’ll save for her to use.
The prospect of spending Thanksgiving weekend alone in my apartment in LA though wasn’t really something I was looking foward to however. So I started brainstorming ideas of something to do without cancelling my flight to Seattle. Eventually, I booked a train ticket from Seattle to Eugene, so I could see my family and friends, and was able to rebook myself on my original flight home from Portland for only $27 more than the credit from the cancelled flight. I emailed J and told her I’d send her money for the credit when I got paid next.
While it was good to see my family and friends, I was still pretty miserable that weekend. It hurt just to be in Portland and not be there to be with her. But I was working on trying to figure out how we were going to navigate being just friends now. In this…I probably pushed a little hard to try and talk to her about some of the issues that led to the break up, as I felt (and still do) that they were significant to any friendship we’d be able to maintain.
Things were a little rough for me, until I decided to cancel my flight I had scheduled for her birthday weekend (this coming weekend). Until then, I still had some slim hope that she’d realize she’d made a mistake and change her mind. I was also quite worried about finances. By going through with the Thanksgiving trip, I’d made a huge unplanned expense (if I was to send her money for the credit). Canceling the trip helped both of those worries…I could let her use the credit for my flight, and then only would need to send her a much smaller amount to make up the difference. Plus I didn’t have to emotionally stare down the idea of being in Portland, for her birthday weekend, but not seeing her.
But alas, things got worse. I had, after returning from the Thanksgiving trip, removed her from my Facebook friends list, as something that she had posted had made me a little sad. I sent her an email and told her why. Then the next day, I canceled my Portland trip, and sent her an email letting her know that, and my plan to let her use the credit, plus send her a check for the difference. We had a good conversation later that night about things, and as a result, I sent a request to add her back on Facebook. She was reluctant to add me back though, so didn’t respond to the request. So last weekend, I asked her about it, and we talked some more, and she finally added me back on Sunday morning.
So here is where I screwed things up. I made a comment about something that had been posted on her profile since I had last been able to see it. Her reluctancy to add me back as a friend, made me scrutinze stuff to see what she had been worried about me seeing. And I reacted poorly as she expected. This resulted in another phone call that didn’t really go that badly…but still there was a bit of an argument during the course of it. But I did feel like we ended it both feeling better about things or at least understanding things better.
But I was wrong about that, and after that phone call, she made further moves to distance herself from me (by removing my sisters as friends on facebook). Now I know rationally, that Facebook is stupid…and it shouldn’t upset me)…but it did. I guess part of it, was that I wanted to have some connection to her that wasn’t just this airfare credit/money. So I got upset, and called and left her a voicemail saying that I wasn’t sure I wanted to be her friend anymore and that she needed to call me that day to work out the credit. Yeah I know…mature of me.
When she was able to call me back and talk, we had another, what I thought to be productive talk. I wasn’t going to make her figure out where to use the credit that night, and we’d take a little more breathing room on the friendship navigation. It still made me sad that she’d defriended me on Facebook again…but I had some hope that things weren’t going to fall apart.
The next day, I noticed that she had continued to make efforts to put distance between us (at least online), by blocking me completely on Facebook and in some other ways. Discovering this, I let my anger get the best of me. I emailed her and told her that I didn’t want to be her friend anymore, that she was mean and hurtful, and not to contact me again. I also said, maybe I’ll send you money for the credit when I feel like I can afford it financially, but I’m not sure I will either.
So now, a few days later…I feel cruddy. I let my anger get the best of me. So I’m a little upset at myself for being upset about something as silly as Facebook. I feel cruddy because I’ve kept this credit/money for myself…mainly because it was a way that I could hurt her in some way (financially)…like I felt hurt (emotionally). But alas, as the song above says…”the ricochet is the second part” and now I feel guilty for taking the credit hostage.
I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do about all of this. I’m working on setting up an appointment to speak to a therapist, so I can wrap my head around all the stuff going on in my mind. I’ll don’t know if eventually I’ll try and seek out some more amiable solution to the credit/money thing (or the I don’t want to be friends statement)…once some time/space has passed…but that will be hard…because I know my reactions were pretty hurtful to her and I don’t expect her to reach out to me. But I guess that’s something I hope to talk about with a therapist.
