I’ve spent so much time this past year telling Shadow that she needs to put herself out there and give out more of her heart, that she’s worth more than just short term happiness. It breaks my heart each time I see someone as beautiful as her, someone with her spirit, her heart, everything really, so jaded and dejected. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve cursed at the people that broke her spirit and turned the happy, carefree girl I knew in 2007 into this guarded, cautious woman.
When she came back to me, I tried so hard. I tried make her happy, to show her it’s not wrong to let people in. I tried to get her to let her guard down. I tried to help her make decisions that won’t cause her further grief, to make decisions that will end in her being ultimately happy. I couldn’t show her by example with myself but I spoke of my idealistic philosophy to her while she spoke of her realistic one.
Last Friday, I went to bed early and she woke me with a phone call, asking to come over. She sat by me on a cold stone bench and spoke of you with stars in her big beautiful eyes. You’re someone I thought would be good for her, even if I didn’t like you. You were close to her heart and had been there for years. A friend who wouldn’t hurt her and on that night you’d told her that you’d like to be more than a friend. I’d seen this coming and talked to her about it. She thought about it so much over the last month. Rationalised it, weighed her options, all the things I would have never done, all the things I never did when I was in a similar position over seven years ago.
I smiled and told her she should go for it. I couldn’t think of someone she knew who’d fit better with her in so many ways. She fidgeted, unsure but she’d already made up her mind to try to make things work with you. I know my shadow, sometimes better than she knows herself. I reminded her of all the things she’d have to give up and while she said ‘Fuck’, I could tell from her eyes that she’d already thought about it and was actually prepared. She was prepared to give up the ghosts of her past, and the ghosts of a future she’d dreamed about for years, for you. In my eyes, you aren’t worthy but it didn’t matter because of how happy she was that night.
Four days later, she sat with me on that same cold stone bench with tears in her big beautiful eyes. She’d made all these allowances for you, her friend, and she’d let you in, her friend, to be something more because of your grand gesture. Then four days later, you decided you needed more time to right your life before committing to someone. She was willing to be there with you, in a greater way this time than all the times before, while you made your life right but you couldn’t.
The thing is, I’m sitting here now and I don’t know how I feel. I’m angry with you, no doubt. I’m angry that you undid all my work. Angry that as she took a step out to let someone in, you chased her back in. Beyond angry that my beautiful shadow had to spend her Tuesday night sobbing into my shoulder as I stroked her lovely hair.
But I also sat there then and here now guilty, wondering if I led her into this misery. I fought with her all year about this. She says self preservation, I say go out there and feel. At the end of the day, we’re both here with our saddened hearts. Mine from giving everything I have to a man who confuses me constantly and hers from trying to give everything she has to someone that I thought was safe.
Tsk. Perhaps she’s right, and no one deserves you completely and the moral of this story is screw the lot of you.
