Downward Spiral

This is the feeling of complete isolation, and I have brought it upon myself. I am left only with the pain from many months ago and the pain from recent times. It's little things that seem big. Like not being invited to hang out before dinner. He and Big D had a little tea party beforehand and came to dinner together, and I was treated like all the other plebes. Like I don't matter. Like I'm no one. And he wonders why I feel replaced. Why I feel ignored.

So I had to get out. I was hurting all the time because he was being so successful at not treating me special. He was doing so well at not leading me on. Sometimes the illusion is easier. And I've been sitting here, counting minutes, hours, both past and future. When I last saw him, when I'll see him again, when everything got so fucked up. I'm desperately trying to remember all the good times, but I seem to be recalling them in the context of blindness. I couldn't see the clues that were stacking up, telling me he wanted me gone. I couldn't see the bulldozer around the corner, waiting to obliterate me.

I relive every second of the past year and I still can't fathom how someone could say they love you one day, then the next day shrug their shoulders and say 'oops, guess I was wrong'. Was I so bad? So incompatible? Annoying? Ugly? Relationships are a lot easier to let go of when there actually is something wrong. But when they seem perfect, it's inconceivable.

I feel like the castaway of an island, watching the horizon for anyone that can save me, wondering how I'm ever going to get out of this. And now I'm making little scratches on the trees to show how long I've been here, without him. It feels heavy. I've lost someone I loved as well as the only person who knows how to put me back together and my best friend. I feel lost. And I know it's only a matter of time before panic sets in. But this time I am the wretched abandoner, not the abandonee. It's only a matter of time before I fall flat on my face without his support. He may or may not know how helpless I am. His notes get me through class, his insight helps me see, and him just being who he is inspires me. It sounds so pathetic, but it's true. I think my soul has deserted me in favor of staying with him. Wish I could do the same.

All I can think of are all the things I would have told him if I wasn't such a wretch. The stories about work, about friends, about funny little things that happen to us every day. And I want to, but the pain in my chest stops me. And the pain in my neck and back and shoulders reminds me how I got here; from hours of shameless sobbing that never really stops. It only subsides for a while, like a tide. And I wonder what he's doing, how things are going. If his life is normal yet, if he's thinking about me, who he's talking to, what he's saying. What he's planning for the holiday weekend that he already planned on doing without me. It's a downward spiral that seems bottomless. All I can do is hunker down in The Middle and wait for whatever it is that's coming my way. Which is probably nothing. And the four same thoughts keep running through my head: I love him, I miss him, I hurt, and I did this to myself.