Closure is kind of an elusive thing.
I used to always tell people that I didn't believe in it - that in actuality, it was just a reaffirmation of knowledge that you already have. But I guess, in effect, that can essentially be what closure is sometimes.
Another fling of a relationship passes by and I am somewhat more wise but as equally alone as I was before it all happened. He came to me from the internet. A place where many good and bad things alike come from these days, and possibly in my delusion, I thought that maybe it was one of the better relationships I've had.
I feel a little bit like my bubble had burst, because before we met in real life he mostly knew of my existence and my writings. My writing, obviously is a filtered, saner version of the mindless rambling that happens nightly in my head. And my existence not too long ago (but before I started this blog), had a reputation for more composure and liveliness.
These days, in the aftermath, I find myself wishing that he would go back to knowing me in the distant sense... hoping that he did not get to witness in person the tragedy that is myself:
We broke up when he left Shanghai. I remember it as bittersweet, watching him at the train station as he faded past the security checks, and slowly, with a bit of melancholy towards his departure I walked back to the subway and went back home. We'll call him Davy.
For two months, Davy and I had some really good times, and even a nice little trip. I picked him up at the airport in a sick version of an extreme blind-date. The guilt of seeing him and deciding was too ugly and leaving, would in this case, have been tenfold. I got lucky with my gamble and he turned out to be, actually, quite cute.
But the silly thing is that when it all ended, this was all I remembered. I had forgotten about the bad stuff. I had forgotten fights and weeks without sex and almost kicking him out and the mind-numbing headaches. I wanted to remember the good, and at the end, I did still care for him. So much, that I told him I wanted to leave our Facebook status alone. And he did.
We continued to talk for a couple weeks, and then communication got hard. Call backs turned into three word text replies, and I got sad... and nervous. I knew inside that he hadn't forgotten the bad parts, that I had really wanted to. Then three weeks ago, he Facebook broke up with me.
It doesn't have a full affect of being timed with the actual break-up, but a Facebook break-up stings at your very soul. I logged in, looked at my page, and had found that I was in a relationship... with myself. No longer was I announced to the world as in an (assumed) happy relationship with Davy, but simply as in a relationship with an anonymous entity. Possibly one of those amazingly headstrong folks who've managed to resist getting an account up until now.
It hurts... it really surprisingly does. It's like going to your prom, with all the eyes on you and having your date suddenly leave you in the middle of the dance. People in the distance gaze into your private space and find you alone, single, where once there were two. And I found myself scrambling to change my status appropriately back to single, so as to not appear as I was left sitting idly in a sinking boat the captain had already abandoned.
And then I called him today. Because I missed him. Because the last three weeks have left me wondering whether the two months I spent with him were so easily forgettable or simply best left forgotten.
Before he left, we had lunch one day and he mused, "I don't know if I were staying in Shanghai, if we'd still be together". I shifted nervously trying to avoid the question. I had a pretty good idea what the answer was, but I told him the beauty of our situation is never having to find out. At the moment I had taken it as a way to probe into my thoughts, to deliver an answer from me. Turns out, it was more of a statement than a question.
Davy basically told me he would have left me anyway, had he not moved away. I find myself floating dangerously into the territories of past casualties. He had come to know me during a time where I had started to fall back into darkness.
I am sitting in my Rochdale apartment back in Berkeley, tears flowing freely down my cheeks and dripping onto the sheets. I'm telling Arthur I wish he had gotten to know me at another time in my life. When I was or will be someone more capable of being loved.
Maybe I'm a fool with conflicting beliefs. I don't remember when it happened, but I stopped believing in being rescued. People helped me come to that conclusion. You have to save yourself before anyone can save you, but if you've already been saved, what the fuck do you need that other person for.
I've been telling myself I need to be a better person. That I need to finish what I've started, before I can be with anyone. But I also want to believe that when I see the guy I'm going to end up with, I'll see through his mess and his baggage and love him anyway. I want to believe I'm that kind of guy. But if I don't believe that he could be that guy to me, then what do I believe in? My own superiority?
My craziness with Davy was exacerbated. In Beijing, on a beautiful day, where I was giving him a shit of a time for something bad that happened mostly out of his control, I knew some part of me was testing us.
He showed up late to some reservation I had made at a new Peking duck restaurant, because his mom had booked some ridiculous lunch in some ridiculous part of town. He couldn't figure out what to do to appease me, but I knew in my head I just wanted someone to see through the stupidity and the frustration. I wanted someone to bypass the career cluelessness and the pangs of loneliness, grab both my arms at the side and say, "hey, let's just go get something else".
Sending up tiny smoke signals, I wanted to turn him into something he wasn't. Because he was a lot of good things and I needed him to also be that good thing as well. Because I'm tired of looking and want him to appear under my nose. Because when the fall comes, I'm going to want to get rescued.
