For a period of my life I was engaged to the most wonderful woman I had ever met.
The name she went by induced laughter and positivity.
Her smile brought the most stone-cold-hearted human to life. She was the best gift-giver in the entire world. A woman I wanted to spend my life with.
That certainly could not happen for all of those reasons.
Because I wasn’t there yet.
When I decided to leave for my home city of Rochester, NY, I left with the full intention of working through some psychological issues I was having at the time and to get my feet a little more grounded. What I didn’t realize was that I had not either communicated that clearly enough.
I was in a dark mental space for countless reasons and I knew within three days of being back in New York that I had made a huge mistake, that maybe moving away wasn’t actually going to fix any of my problems. That maybe the problem was actually between us and that I needed to deal with my luggage before checking into my mansion.
Without hesitation I will admit that I dealt with absolutely none of my problems. That took another six months for me to feel comfortable saying that I had any sort of serious disturbance in my mind (aside from the obvious ones that involve me caring too much at one time or not giving a damn about a single soul).
After six months of ignored calls and finding out that she ended up dating, and is still currently dating, the only person I’ve had a serious distaste for, merely weeks after I left, I tried to get her back.
I asked her what I could do to make her mine again. She had some stipulations that I found to be reasonable so I started tackling them with the accuracy and intensity of a mountain lion.
Getting healthy, stable, and a year of consideration
Firstly, I needed to become a mentally stable person.
Someone that she knows wouldn’t leave her side if things got hairy (which I assumed they most fucking certainly already were).
I stayed steadfast on my commitment to her. Even though I had no sign of hope that I would make it to the other end with her wrapped around my arm until we got old and full of wrinkles.
Secondly, I had to be financially stable.
Now as soon as that was a concern I picked up all of the work I could find and I busted my ass each time I tried. Both times I left the jobs out of over-working myself to the point of mental exhaustion. One time it created a complete mental breakdown of which I locked myself in my cold studio apartment and tried to drink myself into oblivion with Naddy Daddy’s (which I will add are fucking awful tasting—but when my heart was thrashed, I was unfamiliar with my surroundings, and I couldn’t afford heat, their flavor becomes something I found insatiably satisfying and actually pleasureful).
Thirdly, I needed to live in one place for a full calendar year for her to consider me.
Now this I think was what really topped my lid. You want me to be a single man and NOT TRAVEL? This is officially FUBAR. If you don’t already know what that means, it stands for Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition, a phrase that was coined in the trenches of Vietnam. Now I am associating someone that I wanted to marry with the battlefield of Vietnam. Now I know love is a battle, but it certainly should not be an earth-shattering war zone that shouldn’t have been started in the first place.
Then something switched—I wasn’t the Ginger losing the girl
Something in my mind switched one day.
All this time I thought I lost her when she has actually lost me. I had no idea how much unnecessary effort I was feeding into someone who was not even trying to return the favor. Now remember, this is one-sided. I’m sure she has her reasoning that was a sign of her fighting back. I will openly call bullshit on it though.
I had never thought that at any point in my lifetime that I would consider myself valuable enough for me to think that someone lost me. That’s not the way things have ever worked for me.
It’s always been the Ginger losing the girl, never the other fucking way around. I have no idea what this revelation came from but I now want to stand by it forever, as all loving people should do. We are all one of a kind. You, me, your best friend, all of us (except some of those corporate mongers. Some of them are not unique whatsoever.)
I guess what this whole thing is about is that I’ve finally freed myself from any sense of uselessness because I had my entire world shattered at some point. So I will go to say further that I do truly believe that things will always get better, if better is what you are aiming at.
There will be a time when you will see yourself as the people who love you do. And I am already jealous for my next love interest. I have a fine tuned level of swooning inside of me that I shared with someone who didn’t realize it’s greatness.
This one is to you, whoever you are.
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Photo:Garrett Charles/Flickr
This essay originally appeared on Depressive Dusty.
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So you asked her what it would take to get her back, she gave you a list (which you deemed reasonable), and then you decided to wash your hands of her because you considered those criteria (that you requested) to be unfair?
Yes. I worked hard to become who I am now and when it came push to shove for her to be with me she had decided it to be better to stay with her current relationship while still leading me on to believe that we would still one day get married. I felt bad for her, for me, and for her boyfriend for how she had managed her emotions with all of us. Herself included.
Dusty is an amazing Human! I have met him and he shines a light that makes you feel at home. Comfortable. I believe he will go farr in life !! Amazing ” Ginger love”