revenge is beyond me
I can't get over it.
Here, it has been nearly three months, and all I want is revenge on my ex-boyfriend. When they say that girls take relationships more seriously than guys do, it's true. Most girls want a boy that's going to love them forever, and someone who isn't going to trade them for someone "better". What is it about relationships like this that is so fleeting? Everyone knows this is how many relationships end, and the idyllic mutual break-up exists in perfect worlds. I'm not sure why I can't recover; it isn't because I love him, nor because I want his friendship.
It's because for the first time in four years, someone has hurt me in such a way that I can't get up again. In seventh grade it was losing my best friend, Jimmy. I was young, and now I realize that losing Jimmy wasn't the worst of what could've happened to us. He could've possibly never apologized, and I could've possibly never forgiven him. And I know our meetings now are as acquaintances, because I can't claim to know a boy who stopped being my friend long before I stopped pining over him.
And what bothers me now is the haunting realization is that what happens to me now has a familiar deja-vu feel to it. I can't shrug off that both people have exited my lives, if not physically than figuratively. I grow attached to people in strange ways - it begins in a casual meeting and ends with inevitable heartbreak. I remember the first time I met Jimmy, when I went up to his lunchtable to speak with him. I remember the first time I met Jesse was through his then-girlfriend, Julia, who mentioned that she really cared about him, more than a friend. In American Literature, he would request me to join his table, and I suppose I knew him as an acquaintance then, merely scratching the surface.
Months later, I caved into crying over Jimmy who decided that being my friend wasn't important to him. I spent weeks and weeks attempting to reconcile what was then a dead friendship. It wasn't even that I cared he didn't bother to fix it with me; I wanted to do anything to regain what I once had. I didn't see the obvious, glaring flaws with this - the fact that it takes two to create a relationship, and that my one-sided pining was unwanted.
And now, months later, I sketch in disgust, angry in every possible way that someone else could do it to me yet again. The worst part was that I didn't see it coming. I thought it would be like every other time with Jesse; we'd argue, go our separate ways, think about it, and come back wanting to be in each others' arms. I didn't know the obvious, glaring flaw in that, then, either - the fact that he never bothered to talk out my problems, or that he'd broken up with his steady girlfriend of many months, only to date me a week later.
I didn't see what was wrong then. And I never will be able to rewind time and tell myself to find value and worth within me, rather than outside; perhaps my insecurities manifested themselves in the relationships I wanted to have with people -- the clinging relationship I had with Jesse, the ignorant one with my friends who had warned me of him long before I even began to see him more than a friend.
Perhaps it wasn't obvious, glaringly obvious, that it wasn't an issue with others; it was not Jimmy or Jesse who had destroyed my spirit. I pined over these relationships because this was what I had wanted. I was never forced into liking these people, to wanting to be with them. The first time was reasonable to me, the first time someone had crushed my very being, was reasonable. It was that way because I would've never known what it was like, because it had never happened to me before. The second time, it was obvious that I let it happen again. I didn't see it coming, I never can predict when people are just going to exit out of my life -- but I knew that if I could heal myself, to take things with stride, to never strike back .. that I would be fine.
But between four years, the difference between Jimmy and Jesse isn't so much that one apologized, and the other didn't .. I hope to cast their differences in a new light than that. It's more about how I felt about myself while I was with them. I was confident with Jimmy, the new kind of confidence that arrives when I feel like I've got my life under control. I was shattered into pieces with Jesse. That didn't mean I hated my time with him. I just had a drastically low opinion of myself, perhaps the primary reason that I clung to him for dear life in the first place.
I can't change what happened four years ago, and I can't change what happened three months ago. But after thinking about what happened then and what happened now, I can only feel like I've been fooled; not once, but twice.
Here, it has been nearly three months, and all I want is revenge on my ex-boyfriend. When they say that girls take relationships more seriously than guys do, it's true. Most girls want a boy that's going to love them forever, and someone who isn't going to trade them for someone "better". What is it about relationships like this that is so fleeting? Everyone knows this is how many relationships end, and the idyllic mutual break-up exists in perfect worlds. I'm not sure why I can't recover; it isn't because I love him, nor because I want his friendship.
It's because for the first time in four years, someone has hurt me in such a way that I can't get up again. In seventh grade it was losing my best friend, Jimmy. I was young, and now I realize that losing Jimmy wasn't the worst of what could've happened to us. He could've possibly never apologized, and I could've possibly never forgiven him. And I know our meetings now are as acquaintances, because I can't claim to know a boy who stopped being my friend long before I stopped pining over him.
And what bothers me now is the haunting realization is that what happens to me now has a familiar deja-vu feel to it. I can't shrug off that both people have exited my lives, if not physically than figuratively. I grow attached to people in strange ways - it begins in a casual meeting and ends with inevitable heartbreak. I remember the first time I met Jimmy, when I went up to his lunchtable to speak with him. I remember the first time I met Jesse was through his then-girlfriend, Julia, who mentioned that she really cared about him, more than a friend. In American Literature, he would request me to join his table, and I suppose I knew him as an acquaintance then, merely scratching the surface.
Months later, I caved into crying over Jimmy who decided that being my friend wasn't important to him. I spent weeks and weeks attempting to reconcile what was then a dead friendship. It wasn't even that I cared he didn't bother to fix it with me; I wanted to do anything to regain what I once had. I didn't see the obvious, glaring flaws with this - the fact that it takes two to create a relationship, and that my one-sided pining was unwanted.
And now, months later, I sketch in disgust, angry in every possible way that someone else could do it to me yet again. The worst part was that I didn't see it coming. I thought it would be like every other time with Jesse; we'd argue, go our separate ways, think about it, and come back wanting to be in each others' arms. I didn't know the obvious, glaring flaw in that, then, either - the fact that he never bothered to talk out my problems, or that he'd broken up with his steady girlfriend of many months, only to date me a week later.
I didn't see what was wrong then. And I never will be able to rewind time and tell myself to find value and worth within me, rather than outside; perhaps my insecurities manifested themselves in the relationships I wanted to have with people -- the clinging relationship I had with Jesse, the ignorant one with my friends who had warned me of him long before I even began to see him more than a friend.
Perhaps it wasn't obvious, glaringly obvious, that it wasn't an issue with others; it was not Jimmy or Jesse who had destroyed my spirit. I pined over these relationships because this was what I had wanted. I was never forced into liking these people, to wanting to be with them. The first time was reasonable to me, the first time someone had crushed my very being, was reasonable. It was that way because I would've never known what it was like, because it had never happened to me before. The second time, it was obvious that I let it happen again. I didn't see it coming, I never can predict when people are just going to exit out of my life -- but I knew that if I could heal myself, to take things with stride, to never strike back .. that I would be fine.
But between four years, the difference between Jimmy and Jesse isn't so much that one apologized, and the other didn't .. I hope to cast their differences in a new light than that. It's more about how I felt about myself while I was with them. I was confident with Jimmy, the new kind of confidence that arrives when I feel like I've got my life under control. I was shattered into pieces with Jesse. That didn't mean I hated my time with him. I just had a drastically low opinion of myself, perhaps the primary reason that I clung to him for dear life in the first place.
I can't change what happened four years ago, and I can't change what happened three months ago. But after thinking about what happened then and what happened now, I can only feel like I've been fooled; not once, but twice.