Loveletter

So it seems like ever since I been sharing my relationship stuff here things have been progressing, internally, and becoming somehow more free and clearer: thoughts of Y have fallen away, and X has come so far back into the picture it's hard to feel like we're not together anymore, like the last seven months were just part of some dream. And, more so, she sent me a letter this week saying that she feels bad about things, about taking me for granted and being selfish and not recognising all the good things I used to do. That felt like progress. And good, in oh-so-many ways. Anyway, I wrote back to her, and I thought that's what I'd put here today, as my regular Sunday blog, as my words-on-a-screen that seem to have an effect on life and make things happen. I wonder what they'll make happen today...

Hi X, sorry I didn't manage to get in touch with you before you left [for Canada], I ended up missing my last train home and had to stay over with A (who's a volunteer at Oxfam; lives with her boyfriend not too far from the shop) and then my phone had no charge. It did come on later and I sent you a text explaining but I think the phone died as it was going through. D'oh! Anyway, didn't want you to think I was ignoring you.

So, I hope you're having a good trip out CA way (I met some Canadians yesterday, from Oshawa; they talked so funny! lol) and I can't remember when the wedding is but if it's already happened then I hope you had a good time and if it hasn't then I hope it's not being too stressy and also you're not worried too much about your speech. I'm sure it must be fun to go home for you and see everybody, I know how much you like that. And thanks for getting the strings! I'm excited!

Things have been pretty nice here lately (I think); went out Thursday with S and A from Oxfam (the Californian and the Brazilian) and we went early-bird bowling in Wakefield (had five games; was fun) and then chilled in the backyard for quite a while, which was really lovely (don't think I've ever spent any time there, beyond a minute or two; but really nice to be with company - I like hanging with people!) and then we went to Leeds to meet up with another volunteer, M, to go and have Chinese (A wanted cheap, S wanted ghetto; we found both; it was pretty nasty but plentiful!) and then we were going to go and watch a movie at A's but when we got out the station there was karaoke on (we'd been talking about it earlier) and so we just stayed there all night. It was pretty good fun, even though I didn't sing (it was a bit of a meat-head place). S was doing lots of funny dancing and I thought she had awesome moves. She wanted me to sing 'Ring of Fire' by Johnny Cash and do the backup dancing for it with actions but I said maybe I'd learn it and do it next time. I think I can do a pretty decent Johnny Cash on occasion.
Also I looked at a place last night in Leeds, round where my dad used to live, not too far from Headingley. It was pretty cool. Not sure if I should take it or not, though.
Anyway, to your letter...

The first thing I wanted to say was, thank you - and to let you know how amazing and honoured I felt by the things you said, about the good things about me and our relationship, and how you maybe hadn't seen them before or appreciated them. I never expected to be reading something like that - or expected the effect it would have on me. It was like something came back alive, like I could really feel something again that I hadn't for a while. It was like being recognised, and appreciated, knowing that you saw those things and were telling me. I guess it felt very healing, and touching, and made me very hopeful for a future for us, restored a connection. Maybe not having those things seen and said has had some sort of effect on me, killed something inside, I don't know. But it really touched me to read your words and to think that maybe something had changed for you, some realisation had occurred. And it made me sad to think that it hadn't been there before, to think of the effect it might have had on me, and our relationship. Reading your words definitely restored something in me, made me feel more drawn to you again...

I feel sad that you're going on dates with other people. I realised something reading your letter about why I feel like I never went on dates and why there's a difference between using that word and then just hanging out with someone of the opposite sex, because hanging out is just hanging out, but going on dates is checking someone out to see if you want to be physical or romantic with them and I didn't like hearing about you doing that, I'm not sure if I can handle that. I mean, if we're not together, then that's fine - but that's why I find it confusing, because we've talked so much about being together, and been physical with each other, so it feels really strange that you're checking out other people too with a view to being physical or romantic with them. I find that confusing. I find it confusing that you would say you want to have babies with me and grow old with me, but then in your actions be checking out other people. I find it confusing too that you say you want those things but then you say you're "not sure if/how they will happen" - as though it's normal to want things but really you just want them and sort of leave it up to fate. I just think if you want something then you have to do something to get it, not sort of see if it happens and if it doesn't then that's okay too. I guess it makes me think that maybe you don't really want those things if you're not doing anything to pursue them and actually doing the opposite. I guess, also, that I've realised that I'd really like to feel wanted - because I always felt that I did all the wanting, the pursuing before - and a big part of me just doesn't feel like it can want, can give, until I feel that. I guess I just don't want to feel "not wanted" any more. The silly thing is, though, another big part of me believes that you're not the type of person to go round pursuing or wanting - eg, flying across oceans and turning up on doorsteps like I've done with you - and that therefore it's never gonna happen. I do know I want to feel wanted by you, though.

It seems like you're flip-flopping in your thoughts on career again! :-) I guess it must have a real strong hold on you, this conditioning, these ideas about working. I guess a lot of people have that - at least it seems like they do when I talk with them. And you're right, I don't really have that, and it must be hard to understand. I suppose I feel sort of lucky to grow up to parents and in a place where it's pretty much impossible to have expectations of anyone, beyond the hope that they won't go to jail or become a total crackhead! But also, I suppose my plans for my future do exist, too, in that I feel that I can write a successful book - and more besides that one - and so I have some sort of feeling of security, or certainty in that, which takes away my worries for the future, for finances, and all the rest of it. I know that could all be pie in the sky, but yet...it's something I feel, some sort of reward (from God) for living the life I lived and for committing myself to telling it. I have a real belief in that and I feel one day the time will come when all that's borne out in actual, physical life. Of course, you'll want to see the proof in the pudding - but I just wanted to explain to you my feelings about that, about 'my career' - and not necessarily that I "don't want one", but that I have one already, and that it's unfolding in its own sweet time, building towards some happy and satisfying conclusion. I suppose it's funny that I should feel this way, but I do.

When I think about what could happen in the future with us I don't think too much about us living in different places right now, I think things like: Bath isn't very far away, and seeing each other every week or two would be pretty easy to achieve and probably quite nice; I think that maybe you'll get a job with Golder and we'll live together near Wetherby (there's a job opening up at the Oxfam shop there); I think that I'd still like to settle down in Canada one day, have some kids, try my best to be a good dad and partner; I think that I don't think there's anyone else in the world that I'd like to do this with, beyond some currently-unknown, never-met, never-heard-of stranger that may one day appear in my life but who never seems to and who I don't actually believe exists; I feel like the world of others is closed off to me now, they don't interest me, there's no-one out there; and I think that if you really want it to happen it will. I think also, for me, I'm too tired of wanting it to happen, too tired of chasing and asking and pleading with you - and like I said, now needing to feel wanted. There's a big sadness in me of not being wanted by you, and of not being recognised in the ways that you seem to have realised in your letter, and it's made me wary and weary, and afraid, like a child who's been hurt and needs to be held and healed and loved before he can come out of his shell again. If that makes any sense.

Regarding not going for the job in Glastonbury: it was a combination of coin, and circumstance and feeling that told me it wasn't right to pursue that. My car breaking down seemed like a sign to me - and though I did try to get there, in certain ways, I felt prevented somehow, and took that as another sign. Finally, seeing the shop, and feeling what it would have been like to move to Glastonbury, and then feeling what it was like to be back in my shop in Leeds, once I had found some renewed enthusiasm sort of showed me that it was the right thing to do, that I had seen the way in which life was trying to direct me correctly. You know me, I try to read the signs and be guided by them; I think it usually works out, even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes. But I'm glad I stayed up here; I think it's the right place for now.

I feel like I need to say something. I feel like I need to say something about the way you say you have confusion about what our relationship is, and what it will be in the future. I guess I find these things hard to relate to - because, isn't it up to the person that is in the relationship to define what it is, and what it will be? I feel like if you want it to be something, then you have the power to make it that something; that if we want something then it up to us to get it. I feel like asking you, "what do you want it to be?" and "what are you going to do to make it happen?"
I've thought a lot about where things went wrong and it seems like I can trace things back to certain places. Obviously, I can go back to you choosing Bath over us - but, before that - back to the cause of that - there was the way I was being about 'the Y situation', and my confusion there. I know I screwed up, and acted in ways that a wiser me wouldn't have done, getting carried away in my thoughts and thinkings about what might happen, in my dissatisfaction with the way things were with us, in thinking that perhaps we weren't right. I feel bad about that; I feel silly, as though I got carried away in something - in my thoughts - that weren't really real. Back beyond that, though, I trace a line to September, to your mum's visit and our arguments there about me not wanting to go to Glastonbury, about you saying that you needed someone who would do those things - and me therefore hearing, "I can't possibly be with someone who wouldn't do those things" - and me thinking, "well, either she's going to get over that or this is the end for us, because if that's what she needs then that's what she needs and there's not much I can do about that." Writing that, and thinking about it as I have, that seems like a really huge, crisis-type thing; it definitely felt like the end of something for me, and is perhaps where a lot of my hurt, a lot of my giving-up comes from (and, of course, it was all in the middle of probably the most stressful time in my life, what with all the teaching and everything). Before that, I can't see anything - I can't follow this line any further. Before that, all I remember that pertains to this story is when you were in Canada and me being on my own at home and though I was happy and enjoying life - the world cup, my nest in front of the telly, football and early nights and school being okay (although I was falling asleep about 8pm most evenings) - I really remember thinking, wow, my life would be nothing without you, there wouldn't be any reason to be here on this Earth, in this house, in this job, with this future - that I might as well not exist, that there was no purpose in doing anything. It made me feel very happy and grateful for you - and, therefore, incredibly sad and hurt when it was followed so suddenly with all that stuff with your mum. I know I didn't act in the best way - but the way you were on that, I guess it just felt like an end, an impasse for us, and I don't think I went much beyond it. Then with all the stresses of school - which I'm so glad I'm out of! so happy where I am, work-wise! - it was just all downhill from there. That's the line I have, the line of thinking, where I've gone in trying to trace what went wrong, the cause and effect. I'm sorry about the Y thing; I feel like a fool with that.

Anyway, I think I'll leave it at that - s'probably enough for you already! I would have liked to have written by hand - but then, honestly, I don't think I could write this much - or it would take me hours and hours to do (not much good with a pen). I guess I like typing a lot; s'one of my favourite things to do.

Right, well I'm going to send this and then hope you get it soon - and then maybe do some tidying up and preparing myself for getting out of this goddamned place sometime soon.

Hope you're having a great time out there!

Lots of love, and hugs (especially hugs),
Rory