I've been reading a lot here, and trying to sort my thoughts and feelings. I'm trying to untangle them still, but I thought I would post anyway to check in, and maybe someone else has greater clarity than I do! Probably that is true.
Recently H started a convo with me, longer than we have had in a while. He asked me about work (so, so rare that he asks me anything about my life), I replied briefly, and then he spent some time telling me about the current situation at his bartending gig. I listened, empathized with some of his work issues, and asked a few follow-up questions as he talked. We talked a little about the craziness of the larger pandemic situation, and then he mentioned his mom. Another thing he rarely does now--talk about his family (the last time was in April, when he said his dad hadn't sent him a bday card). She's going somewhere with a friend that he doesn't think is safe, pandemic-wise. Reading between the lines, I'm wondering if he's a little worried about her. Even though he doesn't ever worry. He tells everyone: he's incapable of worry, of course.
I tried to be a roommate who happened to be there to listen, and then I went on with whatever I had been doing. At one time exchanges like this would have had me thinking maybe, maybe he was leaning in. That's not the case anymore, though it did, I noticed, lift my mood. Like, oh, look, a somewhat normal conversation is still possible. It also reminded me that I still have hope that at some unknown future point we will be able to talk like we used to, that I'll be able to talk with the H I knew. I was a little unsettled to be reminded of that hope.
Another day—on a TV show, two exes sit down for dinner: They broke up a few years ago, but run into each other occasionally, have the same circle of friends. This is the first time they've been alone together for an extended period of time. He asked her to dinner. They end up talking honestly about what was going on when the relationship fell apart. They've both grown, both are more self-aware. She says she was unhappy at time. He says he was depressed, doesn't know why he couldn't tell her, was building a wall.
I guessed this scene was coming, but it broke me. Such vulnerability, such growth in both of them. I thought: I will never stop waiting for this kind of conversation to happen between me and H. I could see clearly, in that moment, that even if we'd been apart for years, even if I had moved on to a life I'd never imagined for myself with someone else, somewhere in the back of my mind I would still be waiting for that exchange. For a reckoning at least, if not a reunion. Ugh. Ugh because that possibility would of course depend on H doing the work and examining/understanding his share of the responsibility in our M. Ugh because I feel like there will always be some sliver of me, even if buried, that is wanting to see what it would have been like to try with H and not simply be BD, will always be thinking this can't be how things end, he can't be a stranger forever.
So there's that. I've been thinking about boundaries and manipulation, am feeling some anger toward may's H, anguish for may having to do such a quick u-turn. (Though, may, you are a rockstar, and I just admire how you are able to sort out your own thoughts and feelings, and how you are prioritizing that.) I've been thinking about how I was at least nominally there for H when he wanted to share a few things with me this time, and I'm feeling like he must totally take that for granted, that I'm his roommate, and I may not go out of my way to talk to him anymore, but I'll be there for brief, pleasant exchanges, and I'll be there to listen if he wants to talk, I'll always be in a good mood, I'll never tell him he's being selfish or unkind, I'll never criticize the way he's living his life.
Is this the safe-place-to-land thing, or the friendly neighbor thing, or is this just me trying to be compassionate but indifferent, uninvolved in his life but still here because I live here? What am I trying to unspool? There's some discomfort. Is it still some hurt that I am willing to go on being my kind self for him, but he isn't able to do that for me, or he is, but only selectively? Hmm. I'm trying to get at something here, but I don't quite know what it is yet.
Instead of writing myself to some new understanding, I've written myself past the time when I should be feeding my sourdough starter and making dinner.
