Aftermath: Part 1

Greetings and salutations. No exclamation mark today, kind of a bittersweet day.

So, regular readers know that I had planned to ask Sierra Kilo to have a conversation, in person. Specifically,

“My therapist, after some back and forth, believes it might be useful for me to have a conversation with you about certain things that are on my mind.
If you are up for that, please advise. If not, I understand.
Adrian

Well, I got a response. ” Hi Adrian,
I appreciate you reaching out but I’m afraid I cannot accommodate. I’m not in a good place right now. I don’t believe a conversation would be a beneficial experience. “

Well. That’s that, right? Hmmmmmm…not exactly. As I mentioned to a good friend of mine, normally I’d respect that. After all, I’m decent guy, and I can understand what SK was going through. Trust me, it’s a lot. When I read the reply the next morning, I wasn’t as understanding as I thought I’d be. While I was laying in my bed reading his reply, I thought–Adrian…you don’t need a “conversation” per se, but you need closure. You need to get what you need to get off your chest, because YOU need to heal. You need to think about what’s good for YOU and not what’s good for him at this point. What is beneficial for ME is paramount.

So, there’s that.

If you look in the entries marked “Tales From The Couch”, you’ll know that I was tasked to write a letter to him, detailing all the things I would like to say to him, but didn’t. I wasn’t to edit it, but it was to be a stream of consciousness. Well, I took that letter, worked on it, edited, and crafted it to something that I felt accurately expressed my feelings. And I sent it to him.

The letter is under the entry, “So long, farewell, and Amen”. And it IS password protected. For now, I want to know who’s reading it. If you are interested in reading it, comment or send me a message and I’ll consider your request.

So…for now, the saga is over. I don’t really expect a response from him, and even if I got one, I’d probably sit on it for a while until my feelings settle down. For all intents and purposes, this 2 year chapter, and 2 month break will transition into something permanent.

How do I feel? Well, my therapist and I had a disagreement about this. She felt that talking to him would be reinforcing negative behaviour. That I’d still be clinging to the hope that somehow, we could still be together. Well, right now, at this point in time, I can safely say those fears were incorrect. I feel at peace with myself. In time, I’m sure I’ll feel a bit sadder at the possibility that we’ll never meet again, even as friends. But for now, that’s something I can live with.

This, despite by best wishes, has consumed me. It’s been like a shroud of doom, a pallor of darkness inhabiting my soul. Today, I finally feel like I’ve gotten rid of that. That there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not a train. Keats wrote a poem in which he said this, (Endymion)

“Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.

That’s how I feel. That the pall has been moved away from my dark spirit. Like I can finally breathe and shake off the gloom.

Like I said…That’s how I’m feeling today. Of course, the last two months have been great practice at not having SK in my life. As I said to the good doctor, “At the very worst, if I try to communicate and it goes belly up, it’ll be exactly like the situation I’m facing now, so at least I’ll be used to it.” Of course, there is a slight change in the sense that I now know there’s no possibility of reconciliation. I’ve said my piece, got my closure, and hopefully it’ll be easier to move on and to figure out how not to pull this shite again. That’s what therapy is for.

It would have been nice to get some answers to some questions that I wanted. It would have been nice to have had a final dialogue (meaning the two of us chatting instead of me emailing him a soliloquy.) However, in retrospect, I think that the email was the way to go. While I would have definitely prefered to handle a conversation of this sensitivity in person, the chances of it spiralling out of control were too great and too risky given the import of the subject matter. Especially as I think I would have been extremely angry at him. Email is nice and sterile.

Well. The curtain has been rung down on this saga. As Winston Churchill said, ” It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.” I know myself well enough to predict that as things settle down, I may have some more feelings about this. Of course, I can be wrong. Only time will tell. For now, I feel like I’ve done the right thing.

For all the readers who have been following along, thank you. I guess while I can still write about therapy, I will be able to write about other topics. YAY!