I hurt tonight. I have written out the story and babbled about more stuff as part of the process of figuring out what to do with this hurt and how to deal with it and what it means. A very old misunderstanding got some clarification and took me right back to how it felt when it happened and has shaken up some things in how I have viewed stuff from my past.

It isn’t any real big deal other than how it is affecting me. Just another example of how I can handle some big things with ease and how a little pebble that most people wouldn’t even notice can derail me and bring me to my knees.

In college, there was this guy I was dating. Nothing serious but I really liked him. I went away for the summer, first for an study abroad program and then to work a summer camp. I told him I didn’t care what he did during the summer but to be there when I got back to pick it back up again.

I went around Europe thinking of him and wishing to share the experience with him. Half way through the summer, while I was at camp, I got a Dear John letter from him. It hit me really hard. I wrote him back asking some stuff, questioning some other stuff and never heard from him. The not hearing thing also hurt. I have a real problem with feeling cut off and left hanging.

When I got back to school, I ran into him and we talked. He told me he didn’t read my letter because he felt so bad about breaking up with me and couldn’t face it. Turns out that he had met a girl that he felt really strongly about and wanted to date. He hadn’t even asked her out yet but he did feel he needed to break up with me. I felt like he was a dork for breaking up with me before he even found out if she was interested in him. I was still hurt and mad about the way he did it but forgave him and even have him suggestions on how to woo this new girl.

A few years later, he was married to her, graduating, and preparing to start a super secret job. We were still friends at the time, I took some of their stuff off their hands and sold some of it for them. He wouldn’t tell me where he was going because it was Top Secret work so he basically left my life at that point.

20 years later, I get an email from him asking if I was the Gina that …, typical Hey I found you on the internet reconnection sort of thing. It was great hearing from him. I had tried to look him up previously and only found dead ends. He is on the East Coast and we have talked a lot since then. Sometimes every few days. He has drama he has needed help sorting out, I have had my issue he listens to. We have gotten to be good friends.

Something new I found out is that he has a strong sense of intuition that he has learned to trust. Way back when, he knew he and I were not going to work out. He knew he was going to marry this other girl when he first saw her. This intuition stuff makes sense to me and goes along with some of the stuff I deal with. I am good with it and it made what went down in college make that much more sense.

I found out something tonight that really hurts. Somehow it came up that he send me the Dear Gina letter before he met this other girl. He didn’t dump me because he is ridiculously honorable and felt it to be unfair to me to continue a relationship with me when he wanted to chase after someone else. He dumped me to dump me. He was happy with me when I was around. He told me when he found me again that many times he thought of the good times he had in college, he thought of me. It was after he was away from my influence and had some time to himself that he decided he didn’t want me any more. This is also what it felt like when I got the Dear Gina letter and what I was able to let go of when I thought the reason was he wanted someone else. It was easier to forgive him for hurting me because he wanted to move on.

I was on the phone with him when this came up. It started to hurt and I told him that I felt liked I needed to go. He didn’t understand why and said that this is what he had told me the entire time. Going over it, I can see where I could have put things together differently than he thought although I am pretty sure he told me one was because of the other. He can’t understand because since I am cool with him breaking up with me because his intuition told him we wouldn’t work out that nothing has changed. In trying to explain to him the difference, it hurt more and the more angry I got at him. I finally told him I was hanging up and did so.

This is hitting a button for me. As a child, I felt I learned that everyone I like was going to get to a point where they didn’t want to be my friend anymore. I adjusted myself to be prepared to let people go and the more I liked them, the more I made it easy for them. Yndy wrote a beautiful piece that really shows how it worked and what it was like that when I operated from that world view.

For most of my life, I figured that as people got to know me better, they would see more of me and then find the point where they wanted to get away. That I had some sort of monster inside that would drive them off when they finally ran into it. It was the only way I could make sense of things. A few years ago, I figured out that I wasn’t a monster people couldn’t deal with, I was a fairy land full of sparkles and light and wonder.

This ‘love me when I am around and get rid of me when they have some time to themselves’ thing happened a few times. Enough to see a pattern in it and try to work on ways to not follow that pattern or trigger it earlier before I got too attached. The analogy I worked out is I am bright and shiny and some guy would really like me. Being with me was all dessert, candy and sweets. Very desirable. But you can’t live on it, but he would try. Sooner or later, he would be so malnourished he would have to leave the land of the fae to find meat and potatoes. It wasn’t a monster people were finding, it was them reaching a point where they couldn’t survive being with me any longer. And the pattern of things being great when I am around and breaking up with me after some time alone is about my presence providing a glamour and making it all seem worthwhile. When I am not there, they get a chance to reevaluate without my influence and see they need something other than me and need to get out while they can.

Part of my work is figuring out this ‘friends’ thing and how to make it work. A lot of friendships didn’t happen because I just wasn’t present due my thinking that they would just evaporate. I am trying to have friendships based on something deeper than “Hey, Gina is fun” and me bouncing between different groups enjoying everyone at a very surface level. I am trying to bring the nourishing parts of me forward rather than just the candy, sweets parts. I am trying to find the parts of me that is nourishing for others beyond my ability to entertain and distract and provide escapism.

I have learned that I can lose people that matter to me because I am too dangerous for them. That they find I can walk through their defenses and make them look at things they are not ready to look at. I am find with that. I can understand it and give them room. This feels like a quality I should have, something that is important and sometimes needed. I am pretty much ready for those people to re-enter my life when they feel safe to do so. I also do whatever I can to make it safe for them.

If things are running on just glamour, I want to know that so that I don’t invest more than a surface amount or to shatter the glamour so something else can be built on instead.

I am not sure where I will end up with this old friend/ex of mine. It hurts right now almost just like it did back then. But it fades quickly and then comes back. I know I need to process this information and pain. My head says I will forgive him and things will go back to the way they were but I am not sure I want to trust him again. So much of my past shifted because of this tidbit of info. I feel he did wrong by dumping me long distance and leaving me cut off without information and without options. This recently has happened with someone else and damn does this seem to be a button of mine.

After I was dumped and had some time to process it (weeks) I had a fling with C (my ex-fiancé). He came to the camp for a visit and we had some fun (he was an old friend from college as well). I didn’t know where it would lead and I was fine with it being a one time only sort of thing, a friends with benefits per say. But then I got this letter written on a paper plate about how he couldn’t stop thinking of me and a lot more romantic drivel. I fell hard and went walking on clouds. This was the first and I think only time I have ever had this stereotypical falling in love experience. It was great at the time and I never want to go there again. If I still was connected with Paul, even if he was going to tell me it was over when I got back to school, would I have been so susceptible to C’s romantic notions? Things didn’t work out with C in the end and I can look back and wish I hadn’t gone that direction. But I never regretted it because how I felt at the time meant I needed to see where it would go. The idea that I might have had the chance to leave it as a fun fling and not fall for C until after I had some time to get my head on straight really appeals to me. I don’t know where life would have taken me, someplace very different. I would have toured Europe by backpack rather than live in Belgium surrounded by American culture and Americans that didn’t want to be there. I didn’t have the strength of character to stand up to C’s ideas on how couples act to use the opportunity to see Europe like I originally planned.

My friend says he sent the letter because his intuition told him it would be worse and I would be more hurt if he waited. I probably would have been more mad but I think it would have worked out about the same. He feels I read him the riot act back then when I saw him which I feel he deserved for not reading my letter and getting back to me. I would have been hurt and angry about being dumped and confused as to the reason why. I wonder if I would have been mad at him for not telling me sooner and leaving C an open field. No matter which way, he should have read my letter and not left me hanging. It wasn’t about me until tonight. This is when I learned it really was about me after all.

I wish I had the letter with me to reread. I am pretty sure it is in my room at my dad’s old house. Probably with the letter on a paper plate and pictures of when C and I were together. Things I thought I would want to see when I had gotten over the hurt. I haven’t gotten over the hurt with C because we never talked again. I need him to own up to his part in the breakdown in our relationship and then I would be able to deal with him again. It is almost like a magic formula. I had gotten over this other hurt but now it is back.

I suspect from watching how I deal with things that I will end up putting this all aside and things will go back to the way they were. But right now, I don’t want that to be the outcome. This hurts enough that I want it to have some significance. I want something to change because of this. I can tell that my button is not as hardwired as it was before. That is due to the work I have been doing and basically a good thing.

If nothing else my friend has had to go to bed knowing that I am really pissed at him and hurt even if he doesn’t understand why. He might even be worried about if our friendship is going to last or not.

There is a voice in my head telling me to be ever so glad that I am not involved with any romantic relationship and that I should keep it that way. Those things lead to this sort of thing. Part of me wants to listen to that voice and shut myself down, another part wants to ignore that voice because that part knows that deep connection with others is what makes life worth living and part of the price is these sorts of hurt.