Chapter 20. "Very one-sided..."
Hey, hey.
I hope that you all have been well since the last time we were here.
Wherever this place is lol.
Your phone? Laptop? Desktop?
Maybe this is being streamed directly into your brain or eyeball as you sit and read this sometime in 2050!?
Or more likely, you are reading this a couple of hours or days after it hits the internet lol.
I don't know!
I'm not a fortune teller!
Say...why aren't all fortune tellers billionaires?
Hmm.
Again, I don't know!
Get off my back!
No matter how you are digesting this, I hope it sits well within that head of yours.
Tell your friends about it!
Or don't.
Wait...don't.
They may think you are weird.
Well...unless you don't care, or are into that sort of thing lol.
I will leave you all to it.
Something is wrong with my brain today lol.
Enjoy!
-Time machine beeps faintly zlooooop!-
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September 13, 2018.
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Dear You.
So I haven't talked to (who I can only assume is your mom) in 3 days.
Why?
Because I had a conversation with a good friend of mine, and (your assumed mom) found it and didn't like what she read.
So...
I'm not going to copy the conversation here, but I think and hope that by this point in not your like, but this book, you've come to trust my word as truth if nothing else...
She literally asked me if she should just break up with me.
...First of all we are grown as fuck...
And engaged at that...
I am 29 and far to old to be "breaking up" with someone.
There will be times when (who I assume is your mom) overexaggerates on things.
It's just as bad as my spelling tends to get.
All I'm saying is this.
If we "break up" over something as small as this...
We are not meant to be together.
I refuse to keep having to prove myself over and over and over that I am a loyal, faithful man.
I can't help that her ex treated her like shit and spawned a shit-load of trust issues.
If she can't trust me to not chase after every woman who winks at me, then we would never last in any long-term capacity...
I really wish I had the patience to write the entire conversation down so that you can see NOTHING was said that would be cause for a breakup.
NOTHING.
The conversation was about her family member who is terminally ill...
I can't explain how NOT sexy that is...
So, you'll read soon enough if she is your mom or not, because if this separates us, I refuse to get back together...I have given far to much in this relationship and it's getting to be very one-sided...
It would hurt...
It would suck.
It would break my heart for a long while.
But I am strong.
And life goes on.
We will see huh?
I love you Kid...
-Dad.
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-Time machine zlooops back to 2025!-
So lol.
There is a bit to unpack there, huh?
Let's get to it!
-Three days of not talking is crazy, lbvs. We lived together, ate together, slept together, you name it.
Together.
In silence?
Nah...
That is a wild one lol.
Listen, folks...power dynamics are so very, very real...
I was so madly in love with this woman that I was essentially her carpet.
I will never let myself fall to that level of submersion ever again.
I love so...deeply.
So unconditionally...
That I lose myself in my lover...
I ignore all flags.
I am still single after this breakup, and that was...it'll be just over three years now.
Whoops lol I suppose that that was a bit of a spoiler.
Or not?
I can't recall at this point! lol.
Y'all still love me.
I hope.
Anyway, I was quite the pushover some years ago.
No more.
I have learned and gained a lot of self-respect since then.
-Her trust issues were 90% from her past, and that shit sucked.
But I knew that going in, having had been her friend for many years before we had ever made it official.
Before I had essentially saved her from her ex, and then inadvertently love-bombed her into being with me...
-"Should we just break up?" was not something that was uncommon for her to say when we would get into it. I would come to realize that it was not only bait for me to keep arguing with her, but bait for what she probably really wanted all along: me to give in and just leave her alone.
You can't make people love you or fall in love with you.
That, my friends, my child, is not a battle that can be won with attrition.
Ironically, when we did finally break up, that was the sentence that triggered it several years later in 2022.
Wild, yeah?
I had had enough, and I just agreed with her, and it all spiraled very quickly from that point till a couple of months later when I managed to save enough up to slip away and into the little studio apartment that I now live in.
Wild indeed.
-It is wild how "huge" arguments can seem in the moment, you know?
I am trying to form the habit of questioning: Will this matter one to three years from now?"
I think that if it doesn't, it probably isn't something worth fighting over.
Let things go, folks.
We as humans have maybe 100 years to live.
Try to enjoy the, that is a lot shorter than you'd think, and many of us fall short of that on average lol.
I can't recall what we were arguing about that was such a big deal...nor can I recall who I was even talking to in that situation that was such a massive problem.
Bah lol.
I might have written about it in one of my old journals, though! So maybe a "O.J.M. Volume 3." is due lol.
-Trust issues suck...
Especially if you didn't create them.
Did I create some of my own over time? Yes. I can say that honestly aloud and live with it.
I am man enough and beyond pride.
Nonetheless, I didn't create the issues that created our issues, you know?
-I think that there is a huge difference between what we find aesthetically pleasing and what we find sexually attractive.
At least there is for me lol. I can separate the two, and some people can't.
That sucks.
As for the break-up?
It happened.
My heart was broken for quite some time...
Shit, a part of it still doesn't beat right anymore, and its been just over three years now.
Lort, have merbies.
I will leave you all at that lol,
You too, Kid lol.
I am sure I will see you back here soon enough.
Safe travels, folks.
And as always:
Stay safe.
Stay healthy.
Stay vigilant.
-Redd.