Part 6 of 9

(Edited 12/1/2023)

I must be a bit more delicate with this part.

This one is about the last lover you’ll ever have, at least in the season that you’re in. Things get interesting, arguable better after that, but let’s focus on this one.

There’s a person who you’ll meet that serves as the total package for you. Smart, funny, creative, beautiful voice, magnetic smile, all the check marks that make them The One for you. But you are still acting on the impulses of a toxic environment that promotes juggling options, often deceptively, before sticking to your favorite choice.

Sparing a bunch of details, it all ends with them. Let’s call them Dee.

For a time, things look amazing and progressive with you both. Even connecting further with creative outlets that you two want to be more than just an improv jam session, and occasionally mutual friends.

But there’s a lot of pain that you’ll discover in your pairing, and you push aside yours to make sure Dee is okay. That’s fine, to a point. It’s what you do when you declare any type of love for someone. You quiet your ego to attend to another’s grief, especially in the fear of them “opting-out.” And that fear happens a lot.

Over time, you become the primary subject of Dee’s grief. You stress over the same domestic topics that, according to Dee, are easy to manage with the simple suggestion to “just leap.” But you don’t, out of fear of multiple reasons, loosely or directly, based on what I have talked about to this point.

But it’s mostly because you repeatedly backslide on your claims of doing better, promising that you’re not screwing around with your individual goals.

You won’t see it as backsliding in those moments. Just like how you won’t see your counterpoints being meant to gaslight or guilt trip them into believing you’ll change. You’ll do and say anything to keep them from leaving you, to avoid losing the idea that your relationship status alone means you’re doing alright.

Sound familiar?

This is even considering that you’ll notice issues with them, as well. Mannerisms that reflect your upbringing, your environments of choice or circumstance, but none hurt more than the repeated claims of infidelity. You know how deeply that subject hurts you, and you’ll feel they did too until this point.

Quick, deeper flashback. You still remember the day you found clothes thrown on your house’s lawn because one’s sins were (re)discovered, and later that night having to help a family friend come between them to prevent more harmful events from happening.

And despite sharing that with Dee, they’ll still accuse you of it. More than once. Even going as far as cutting you out of a picture you’ll take together once it’s put online.

All of that is enough for you to want to walk first. There are other reasons that connect to emotional abuse, but that topic alone is non-negotiable.

But you’ll try to salvage things because this is part of a concept of love that has hurt you more than you’ve yet to realize. Not just with Dee, but with others past and present, romantically charged or not.

Most deeply, the Sources. The ones that want you to bend to their complaints, but never wish to hear ones about themselves, just as Dee will at a pivotal point.

Even after they walk, and you’ve had enough distance from each other, you’ll realize that it had to be done to be the cycle breaker. That, and you’ve been in love with not just your concept of Dee, but the trauma that’s been around you for decades.

This is pain that hasn’t come to you yet, and as much as I shake my head in reminders, it’s the biggest step needed to reach where I am, so that you know that it’s what was best for you, and most others around you. I say most because some won’t want to hear that talk. Because learning what’s wrong with you will indirectly reveal something’s wrong with them.

But I can say the same about you.

Breathe easy. You and I are next.

D.F.

Part 5, Part 7.