When I Say Out Loud, I Want To Get Out Of This, I Wonder Is There Anything, I'm Going To Miss, I Wonder How It's Going To Be, When You Don't Know Me

--"How's It Going To Be", Third Eye Blind

As far as girlfriends and break-ups go I'm batting .500. I've been dumped exactly twice. I've been the dumper exactly twice. In both cases, it fell to me to be the one who offered the opportunity to remain friends. While that offer hasn't always been accepted, I'm coming to terms with the fact that when it comes to forever I'd rather believe in the concept than not believe. I'd rather be the one who is gracious enough to at least put the notion that two people can stay in each other's lives despite their history together, despite the drama, and despite an individual wishing and hoping there could still be more between the two. That's just the romantic idealist in me.

It's strange because I don't place regular friendships under the same blanket coverage. I've walked away from a lot of friendships that weren't romantic in nature. I did it with the folks at St. Rita's. I did it with the folks at La Salle. I did it with the folks at Crown Books. About the only people that it never occurred to me to step away from were the people I befriended at Bally's. Perhaps I haven't spent too much time in their company yet, but so far they haven't become more of nuisance than a nourishment to my life. On the whole I usually find it rather easy to walk away from most people.

But there's something about when I find that romantic spark that defies the idealist in me. It's almost as if I have this rule that once two people connect in that matter they stay connected. I refuse to believe that kind of love dies. Even if two people fall out of love, a good part of me has to believe that the bond between them stays viable.

For a long time I used to question why I have to be this way. I used to puzzle why I can go forgo most friendships, but once it crosses over into a relationship I tend to never say die. I believe it has a lot to do with Jina, the first girl I ever was close friends with and liked romantically. There was a time there where we were as close as any two people can get. Then I went and fucked it all up after she rejected me. I went ballistic. I burned all her stuff, everything she ever gave me. I took it the way I used to take things, thinking first with my temper and not my head or heart. All I could see was the pain she caused me and little else. I didn't care if I ruined things with her because, as far as I was concerned, she wasn't worth keeping around.

Then a funny thing happened a year or two down the road. I started to miss her. After the sting of rejection had faded, I started to realize that I had let go of somebody good and decent in my life. Even if we could never be in a relationship, I started to realize the friendship we had was something special in itself. Especially in comparison to the friendship I'd forged with Lucy almost concurrently, it was like looking at two pictures of the same thing, just taken at different angles. Jina was the girl I'd approached kamikaze-style, guns blazing, who never really stood a chance under all that pressure. Breanne was the girl I'd moved too slowly with for fear of fucking things up again. And yet because I didn't let my temper get the best of me (or her just being as stubborn as I was), I'd managed to hold onto the one I was sure I was going to drive away and drive away the one I thought would last forever.

It really is funny how things like that work out. The people you're sure of as being compatible turn out to be not so and the people who you possibly think you're never going to be seeing again you're still talking to almost two decades later.

I never gave up on Jina, though. She became the one who got away that I really wanted back. Somewhere in the back of my brain I started to concoct the idea that if our bond was true then I'd be talking to her again someday. I even wrote about it here in the early days of this blog. Even then I called her the one that got away. Even when I was talking about the horrible affair of burning her effects, writing her evil letters full of spite, and basically hating her with a passion, I still had it in me to say that despite all that there was still a chance she and I would reconnect someday. It's that strange mixture of hope and hopelessness that formulated the idea that from the point on I would never give up on anyone I started dating. Even if the relationship might end in tears and flames, I knew I was never going to separate myself from them completely. Because of Jina I don't have a box to compartmentalize somebody I was intimate with like that. Because of her every woman I have a relationship with now has to be someone comfortable with the idea of me being in their life for the long haul because that's how I think.

I mean--just look at the facts. About a year after being all miserable about how I'd pushed Jina out of my life forever I found her again on my blog of all places. She still wanted to be friends even after not talking to one another for a decade. That just reinforces the idea that when a connection as deep and as true as ours apparently was, it lasts. It may not last forever like I believe, but it certainly lasts longer than some cynics might posit. Sometimes picturing how it's going to be without a person is more horrible than picturing how it's going to be if you have to deal with them as an ex. That's what I believe anyway. I just believe that I'd rather have an ex I'm distanced from, but still can keep in touch with than lose somebody who was dear to me once completely.

I suppose I just can't imagine giving my heart to someone and then having to ask for it back. When I give something like that it really is a gift that isn't returnable.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers