Memes are so effective a communication tool because the common, relatable aspect in each one connects with such a wide (or sometimes specific) audience.

It’s really no surprise that everything I’m feeling right now, I could just chain post as memes and feel better about the day.  Writers don’t do that.  Words are our weapons; they are our strength; they are our consolation.

My nearly 2 and a half year relationship ended about a month ago.  Perhaps I should call it out as the 28 month old that it was; that seems fitting for something that never really matured the way I would have liked. It had been over far longer than that, but when you care about someone it’s hard to usher in the era of fault and blame without owning a little bit of it.  Our paths had diverged in the least likely way in the first place, and in her I had found a meaning and purpose I had thought long since extinguished.  I wanted to be something to her that she never really intended for me; she told me, as recently as 6 months ago, that I wasn’t what she “wanted” but maybe what she “needed,” and that she was settling because “doesn’t everyone?”

For a while now, when talking with friends about what wasn’t working, I would illustrate our connection by placing both my hands palm to palm, but one hand slightly lower than the other.  We were a good fit, but not a great one. I appreciated so many things about her that other people took for granted, and I always wanted to see her for what she was really thinking and feeling, but, here, I failed miserably.  When discussing the impending break up, she explained how miserable I made her most of the time, a feeling I couldn’t connect to because I didn’t see the situation through her lens.  In trying to be a solution to all of her problems, in trying to “solve” this issue or that issue, in trying to make sure if she wanted this or that she got it or if she wanted to go here or there, we would…I forgot the most important thing:  the person.  None of what I was doing for her made a difference because I hadn’t considered that the hole I was trying to fill couldn’t be filled with any of that.

For her part, she was trying to fill a hole with something akin to drinking vinegar when you’re craving a beer. Why I didn’t listen more closely when being told I wasn’t wanted?  Why was I so willing to accept a relationship where I should have known she wasn’t happy, even if you could scroll back through the last 6 months of conversations between us and think we were? I knew better; even though I didn’t know anything at all. I know the end of this relationship is a relief for her, rife with possibility; and that what I’m feeling…loss… is not anchored in truth but in desire.  I always wanted to matter to her in a way that was never even on her radar.  When she needed something blue and kept being given something red, the frustration mounted proportionately. In the end, everything I thought to be true was an illusion that I’m not near good enough a magician to figure out.