Remember? A Neurotic Little Free-Flow of Thouthts

Remember when I did that horrible thing, that absolutely devastatingly heart breaking thing? And remember how angry you were and how much you yelled and screamed and cried and withheld affection. For at least a month, I think,  there was nothing but  "discussion" between us We talked and fought and cried and sulked and deliberated about it so much that eventually I believed I would surely have a stroke, or, a mental breakdown of one sort or another. You resented me so badly I could almost smell it on your skin and you held "forgiveness" in front of me like a precious, dangling carrot, taunting me with the promise of relief from the heaviness. You knew how badly I wanted your forgiveness, how badly I wanted the hurting in your heart to stop and the agonizing discomfort between us to soften. Over the weeks that followed,  I began to feel  tolerated. You gradually mustered up the ability to be in the same room with me without shooting nerve gas out your blankly staring eyes. Ok...I know that's a hyperbolic use of drama, but that's how it felt to me.

Remember how heart broken I was, knowing that I had hurt the man I had been in love with for years? Remember how scared I was to come home and how I had walked around in sub-zero weather for at least five hours, not knowing what I could do or say that would somehow make it less painful for you? I wanted so badly the ability to reach my arm back through time to one seemingly insignificant moment when I could have made one choice differently than the one I made. I couldn't though. I had to accept that I had fucked up in the worst way and that our lives would never be the same and that you may never love me again like you had and that I was all alone--completely alone with my self-defeating thoughts that screamed horribly hopeless messages that made any reasonable attempt at reasonable-ness seem absolutely ridiculous, and....of course, unreasonable. I totally understand why you left that morning. I feel like I should repeat myself: I totally understand why you left that morning, but, I was left with a lot of pain to manage by myself. Loneliness had never felt so tangible before, as it I could sense it on the skin of my face and weighing down attempts to lift my head and arms. It felt suffocating, like a wet blanket had been thrown over me and that the only way out was to somehow find a way to relax into breathlessness.

Remember when I watched you pack your bags and prepare for escape to that short, kinda cute chick with inviting dimples and how I pleaded with you not to leave, but to stay home with me so we could work things out and so that I could show you how much I loved you from the deepest part of my soul? You just kind of did one of those "herhumpf" with your throat and said very stoically, "I'm going to Peppers." That's when I felt even more ashamed. If I had had a tail, that fucker would have definitely been hid between my legs. My quiet leave I could not have taken too soon. But, where would I have gone? Reality, with all its wound-opening bitterness would have surely followed me where ever I went. So...I sat on the sofa and cried. I cried a lot for a long time, until finally it came time to go to that stupid AA meeting. I did not want to go! Embarrassment in front of a bunch of drunks?  No way! But, because you asked me to go--actually I believe you made the subtle, yet deafening suggestion that anyone with any desire to save his relationship would be going to the meeting--I went. In fact, I not only went, I chaired the meeting. "Hi, I'm Shawn. I'll be your chairperson for today's meeting, and, um....I relapsed yesterday." I half expected some of them to laugh so hard they spit their burning coffee in my face.

But, as people are fond of saying now days, what's done is done and nothing could be changed that had already been done, despite any doing on my part. So, I want you to know, even though it sounds completely neurotic and narcissistic and maybe even a little creepy...
for leaving me there alone that morning, although you did the right thing, I forgive you.

More importantly...I'm really sorry. And, I love you.