If I tried I always ended up tip toeing down the hall to whisper into their room, "I'm sorry."
I've always wanted conflict resolved.
And I've always wanted to make up with the people I love.
But I'm not a little girl anymore.
I've changed.
I had a falling out with someone I would have considered to be one of my best friends and instead of feeling sad, I have felt relieved.
We'd had arguments before.
We've known each other for years, that's bound to happen.
Especially when it's someone you've slept with.
Past lovers know all of your buttons.
The good and the bad.
But each time I thought that might be the end of it, the thought of not being in each other's lives was too sad for me to bear.
I'd always end up apologizing and saying I was wrong, regardless of what had happened.
Because I wanted things to go back to the way they were.
And that's just it.
They haven't been the way they were since I can remember.
Letting go is easy for some but it paralyzes me.
I can never seem to do it.
Do you know he is the only man I've ever loved that I dumped.
And I still somehow seemed incapable of walking away.
Isn't it peculiar.
I never want to believe a thing is over.
Changed, sure.
But finished?
Tis unthinkable.
The fight had us last week, though it had been stirring for weeks, months even.
I had become so angry and I didn't understand why.
Resentful.
Annoyed.
I've never married but I felt as though I was experiencing what so many married couples must right before divorce.
That imperceptible transition into sheer disgust with someone you once adored as thoroughly as life itself.
But whatever love was left seemed put on, feigned, as though we were players in a show.
For whom, I'm uncertain, though I think we each did it more for ourselves than the other.
Because nothing in our interactions was ever about putting the others needs first anymore.
So the fight climaxed.
And he had his say.
And I said mine.
I told him the truth.
That he was the only person in my life who made me feel ugly.
That he had for three years.
And that I would always feel ugly as long as he was in my life.
And in writing it reads like such melodrama.
The histrionic actress exaggerates for effect.
But it's sadly the plain truth.
No one has made me feel more insecure, more undeserving and unworthy than the man who never told me anything loving.
I suppose 36 months was my threshold.
I also always resented feeling like we remained friends solely because of my efforts.
That if I'd never invited him to the symphony, if I'd never apologized after one of our quarrels I would just never hear from him again.
I cannot bear that responsibility anymore.
After I wrote what I did, I saw that he was starting to type a reply.
But he never sent it.
And I was surprised that I was glad.
I didn't want to make up.
I wanted to be severed.
I wanted to feel beautiful.
Alone.
But beautiful.
It was the most balanced I'd felt in ages.
And I hoped, with every fiber of my buried romantic heart, that love would find its way back into my life, however unexpectedly.
And I would believe again.
In hope.
In love.
In a man who would make me feel beautiful just from the way he looked at me.
I have forgotten what that feels like.
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