In hindsight, it's all pretty simple:
You and I built this great dynamic with these amazing interludes that were an escape from mundane reality for the both of us.
We got to go on with our busy lives, full of distractions and intrigues, poop cleanup and psycho landlords, lunatic cofounders and corporate lawyers, dreaming up these safe spaces where we could hide from the everyday for a minute, and make out on the Ferris Wheel without a single care in the world.
And dreaming them up was half the fun! Flirting for weeks on end during the buildup, anticpation ramping up as the days got closer, all the way back to your omelet cooking lesson.
I have never been so wrapped up in someone, so full of anticipation to see you, as I've been before every time we met. And I know you were too, because when we got together, well, sparks flew.
And then my life changed, but yours didn't, and when you tried to make it all fit, it was just too much.
So we became a bit like a carefully tended orchid, going from a lush tropical greenhouse to a tiny little plastic tray on the florist's shelf at Safeway -- the orchid might make it, but things will by definition be touch and go for awhile, and take a lot of patience, some careful watering, and a whole lot of luck.
When I reread our texts from the weekend I got back into town, I see them from a different perspective than I did, in the moment.
I see in you somebody already woefully overextended, being as sweet as she can be, trying to make room for this suddenly all-consuming new part of her life, letting her kids down, stressing herself out, and eventually reaching the end of her rope.
I guess you handled things the best way you felt you could, but still, it hurt, and while I think I have a fairly good handle on the reasons now, it all seemed out of nowhere at the time, and I got stuck flagellating around, trying to figure out the Why.
The thing is, the way my brain works, a loose end like that just sends me spinning on an endless hamster wheel.
I absolutely should have handled everything far better than I did, and I probably just helped confirm for you that you made the right decision, flipping out and blowing up your phone like I did.*
So I took a bad situation, and a bad heartbreak, and I made it all a whole lot worse.
Oof.
I've apologized a bunch already, so I'll assume you heard me at this point. I just needed to write this down one more time.
* To say it again, I really and truly didn't mean to run into you that Saturday night, I swear. I wasn't hiding in your bushes or something.
I suppose the fact that it was plausible I might have been kinda points to how unhinged I was acting. 🤷