Well, I have said a great deal, and everything could be right, or it could be wrong, or even both at the same time. If you asked her, she'd probably give you a spin on the same events that would bear no resemblance at all to the rubbish I've written. And both could be right, in their own way. That's just how it is with the truth.
I am actually rather sorry about holding our relationship up for public scrutiny like that--though I have never gotten into it in too much detail. It still seems like somewhat of a breach of trust. She was my friend before she was my lover, and though she probably doesn't feel the same now, in my heart she still is my friend. We shared too much laughter, had too much fun together, had too many moments of tenderness, for those platonic feelings to be completely extinguished.
I don't want to pick apart what happened between us, not anymore. It was what it was. And even near the end, it was more precious than I realised. I had her to talk to. Someone from whom I had no secrets. Someone whose intelligence exceeded my own. Someone who would tell me the harsh truths even though I didn't want to hear them.
You are not a bohemian poet, you are you. Stop hiding behind roles and get to the human. Yes. I am out in the open now, for everybody to see. No masks anymore.
You say you hate someone one day, and the next day you don't. All I have is your statements to go on. Can I fail to be confused? You couldn't.
You compromise your principles by kissing up to those you perceive to be strong. That job is turning you into somebody I don't like.I don't want to see that. I did kiss up. I denied it so vocally because I hated myself. I have left that job and started afresh. No kissing up to anyone now.
You are using other women to try and make me jealous. I did, at one time. It was unworthy, and I'm not going to try and rationalise it away anymore.
You whinge and you whine when things aren't going your way. Well, you can't change everything, right?
If time were like a passage of music, Joyce Johnson says, you could keep going back until you got it right. Well, you can't go back, not yet anyway. When the time machine is finally invented I will be the first one in it; I've got more to make right than all the rest of you put together. But for now what is done is done, what has been terminally hurt stays terminally hurt. All I can do with her, since I made the regrettable decision to conduct the end of our relationship in public, is state publically that she was a hell of a woman, forget any cr*p you might have read on these pages. You all know me well enough by now to know that I have mountains of horse puckey to wade through in my own mind before I can get to anything even remotely resembling a balanced and rational view.
She told me right from the start that it was going to be a hard ride because of her home situation. I knew it, but I still went along for the ride. I wanted love, and adventure. And I got both of them, in buckets, as well as a better relationship with my father, whose point of view she articulated passionately (turning my whole self-righteous distorted view of my childhood upside down); and because of her I got away from my mentally-ill relative into a home of my own, the home I still live in--if I hadn't made that escape, who knows where I would have ended up? In a loony bin, probably, though I'm not sure I'm still not headed that way.
When we first got together and we talked about old relationships, she used to ask Will you say horrible things about me if we ever finish? That used to upset me, anger me: it was like she was willing the end of our relationship. We never will finish! I'd say, showing the firm grasp on reality I've always had. But here we are. And whatever negativity might have crept into the relationship towards the end--and I don't care whose fault it was, not anymore, though I must have been a lousy boyfriend--it was pretty f**king great while it lasted, people. Screw pride, I am through with defaming anyone, especially her.
Every time I relax near a woman these days I call her Ruth.If there's a next time, with anyone, it won't be played out on an internet page.
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