I know I’ve written numerous blogs saying this will be the final one about R and me. But this blog is one long love letter anyway. It’s a letter to R, in the hope that she may read it all one day. It’s a letter to my children and my family so that they may come to understand me better. It’s not easy to realise that it’s final. It’s as if by saying it’s the last one then that’s it, she disappears from my life forever, as if she never existed. I only have one photo left of us together and I haven’t had the heart to look at it, even though after over a year it’s still far too painful. If I keep writing about her, about us, it helps to explain how I find myself in the present.
I suppose by posting this picture up it is the final piece of my tortured puzzled prose, the ultimate tragic act in my own Shakespearean tragedy.
It’s the engagement ring I was going to give her the final week we were together last May. It’s nothing much, £500 of money I never had. £500 that I didnt have the heart to get back. Too embarrassed to take it back to the shop, hoping she’d change her mind, its now kept in the back of a drawer, a tiny reminder that she was my everything and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.
Why didn’t I ask her to marry me I hear you shout? Ah there’s the rub! There’s the million dollar question that has a myriad of answers. Did I believe she loved me enough to say yes? I believe she believed that she was madly in love with me. Was I mentally and physically too ill to risk rejection? Was I willing to risk my already fragile heart getting broken further, my low self esteem plummeting to new depths? Was I a coward? Did I want the responsibility of being in a real partnership? Did I believe her friends and family would accept me? Was I good enough for her? Why was she in love with a man 17 years her senior who saw himself as a failure, undeserving of happiness? How different it would have been if I’d turned to her and said ‘Will you marry me?’
My mental and physical health at that point were already critical. No one else knew but me. You become very adept at hiding the pain. You become a superb actor, there is no method better for training than the life I have led. I told her that it was over. I told her I wanted to spare her the pain of looking after me as I got older and gradually sicker. I never gave her the choice or the chance but I suppose she should have seen I was already in deep trouble.
Isn’t it terrible that such momentous decisions are taken from a position of weakness. If only I had a normal life, I would’ve been successful, strong and able to accept that I was good enough for anyone at any time. There have been very few occasions where I have made a decision from a position of strength. My EUPD explains so many things now, from my earliest memories to today. I have not been led by healthy emotions but by damaged bent and twisted ones. What is seen as black and white by others is looked upon by me as a kaleidoscope of blurred colours. All inexorably leading to a wrong decision based on fear and self loathing. Would I have made her happy? There would have been moments of intense happiness followed by long periods of shutting her out, pushing her away until the choice was no longer mine to make. To some this was enough but in the end they were damaged by me, to my everlasting regret.
I believe that I have changed. The drugs are helping. A mental band aid to stop the initial injury from opening too wide. The diagnosis of EUPD is leading me to an understanding of who I was, what and why I’ve done what I’ve done. I have a long way to go and a 12 month counselling course to go on. I’ve come a long way in 13 months. I know I deserve happiness. I know I have achieved a minor miracle in surviving and getting out and trying to work. I’m optimistic, there are moments when who I was supposed to be shine through. There are moments when I leave people feeling better for knowing me, not upset or angry or damaged. I believe I’m worth knowing.
I’ll put the ring back in the drawer. In years to come maybe I’ll look upon it with kinder, more knowledgeable eyes and smile for a while, and wonder what if. I continue to grow. I move forward with my diagnosis clutched in my hand, my pills rattling in my mouth and a sense of adventure of what lies ahead.
What is so fucking tragic is that as I look at this small ring, turning it over with fingers that used to brush the hair from her eyes, I know that the person I am becoming would have asked the question, regardless of the consequences.
Well, it's "fare thee well", my true love
The song is in the air
I hear the west calling
See what's for me there
With the sun i'm leavin'
I'll be montana bound
Ain't no use in grievin'
I'll show you what i've found
Yeah, some folks have it easy
At least that's how it seems
Reach up and pick an apple
Reach up and find a dream
Some travel in the darkness
And rest upon the shade
Some wrestle with their demons
And face them unafraid
We argue for our better selves
We only ask for more
We take the mirror from the shelf
And find the open door
I love you with a fever
I love you with a past
My heart is a keeper
As long as it will last
As long as it will last
I'll tell you what i know
We walk this road together
And we walk this road alone
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O1iQGiPfgas
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