-George Washington  

Previously in Xenology: I tried to end my association with Kate.

Lost and Lonely
As you actually do not know, because my web host is an evil, hateful, contract-breaking troll, I have somewhat been speaking with Kate. Yes, I know that I essentially said I was done with her and needed to cut her out of my life for the time being if I were to be healthy and happy. But, see, I missed her a bit. Not a lot, but certainly enough.

A sketch of Katie I drew a few years ago.

I am not the codependent emotional packrat idiot that some of you have likely decided I am based upon this turn of events. I certainly did not turn a blind eye to what I had said and how I felt. I merely realized the ridiculousness of speaking with everyone in her household, save her.
It had been brief notes. I inquired as to her plans for the summer. She is going to New Zealand from July to December, for those Kate fans out there. These epistles had hardly been of note. Not ever verging on intimacy and quickly adding edges of subtle arguments over petty things. I think it is most valid to try to reconstruct a dialogue based upon these letters. Bear in mind, this scene did not occur, but I am being dramatic for the sake of storytelling. It is loaded heavy with dialogue, because that it the raw material I must make palatable.

I sit upon a stone bench at New Paltz, quietly studying Spanish before my final in an hour. I see Kate approaching, ranked on both sides with associates I cannot place but who seem generic in a college sense. I smile despite myself, because my heart heals rapidly and tends to react to the fondness we once held for one another before the brain can give a metaphorical jab in the ribs that we have shared pain as well. Now all we exchange are five sentence e-mails with the depth of a wading pool.
She looks at me and we exchange brief greetings and the typical banter of awkward meetings. I ask her plans for the summer and she remind me that she is taking a semester abroad on the other side of the world in New Zealand and will be leaving the States mid-summer. A part of me is honestly satisfied with this, as I recall the warm letters we exchanged while she was in New Mexico getting fired by the Boy Scouts of America. I mention that I hear things are expensive there, owing to having to import most everything. She shoots back that she hears alcohol is cheap and I sarcastically rejoin that I hope this isn't what she means by "everything."
The air feels thick with the sudden tension between us. I expect that she is going to walk off and only send me daggers in her eyes when we pass. She begins to turn to leave but thinks better of it and says, "I just wanted it to be clear that the us-emailing-gesture was on your part, as it had to be, as I had already attempted unsuccessfully to make said gesture. And I am concerned that we can't send a few emails off without already getting into argumentation. And while I don't believe in this artificial stopping of things, there does seem to be a very real and threatening lack in our ability to communicate constructively (or even neutrally for that matter). And I am wondering if it is really possible for us to negate (or positivate) this lack."
My eyes widen slightly, as this is jumping into the depths. I can tell that she has thought through this speech for a while and just got up the courage to unload it upon me. This is not something to be entered into lightly and it concerns our relationship. Both the one we currently have where words are as few, cheap, and unexpected as empty bottles of clamato at a vegan alcoholics anonymous meeting. I explain carefully, "Yes, I acknowledge that I began writing these letters to you partly because I missed talking with you and thought it was a bit silly that I was having conversations - albeit brief ones - with everyone in your apartment, save you." She seems to consider this carefully, but it not yet ready to unfurl her thoughts further. I endeavor to answer her in more detail in hopes of provoking a satisfying response. "We do not seem to have a medium setting in our interactions with one another. We are either lovers (which is not to say romantically, though that is a residual component, but that we are fonder than we should be as friends) or opponents. There is really no switch for 'casual friends' between us, and that is a big part of the problem. I know that I want to be important to you, when I don't want you to disappear, and I think this might be mutual. In failing to fulfill one aspect, the other is sought. 'I can't be fond of you, so I'll be distant.' and vice versa." I feel that I am pleading and overplaying my hand, if indeed I have one to start with. I spin the silver claddaugh ring around on my finger nervously, starting to feel tremors of fear well up under in my chest.
She takes a pack of cigarettes out of her side pocket and considers the box, trying to concentrate on its sands and pyramids to give her the distance to listen to this and the serenity to respond without lashing out and aggravating the situation. Not looking at me, she confides in the drawing of a camel on the box, "I mean for a while when you didn't want to talk to me anymore I was pretty upset, but then I began to think if maybe it wasn't for the best. And while I don't think anything less than an acquaintanceship would be for the best, I do see the point of it all and I do see it clearly." This admission wears on her, but it is certainly honest and that is about the only thing we have going for us.
I don't think I expected her to agree that I was even slightly right to want to stop interaction between us. It was one of the most difficult decisions I had ever had to make, as I remembered every day I spent by her side as lover and as friend. I didn't want to never see her again, but I couldn't stand holding such negative feelings toward someone I know I loved and for whom did still have love, albeit far from the romantic sense. I was startled by her claim to have truly understood my position and her expression of empathy. This was new. "But where can be go from here?" I queried. "When we had our last conversation, it was almost entirely quarrelling that would not occur between friends of many stripes. I have to say that when I finished, I felt decidedly negatively about our interactions and, as you well know, sought to not have a repeat of this stress. Aside from Zack and Conor, I believe my friend hold negative feelings toward you and I believe your friends rather reciprocate toward me. That kills group interaction. We certainly do not work at all well alone together." I shift uncomfortable on the bench, having unintentionally invoking intimacies long past. "School will be out as well, since you'll be in New Zealand. We are already snippy to one another in letters..." I look to Kate in hopes that she can offer some way for us to build a friendship, but her eyes possess the pained hopelessness I knew so well from my own when I considered this all.
She squint back what could be the tears or could be the sun and wind trying to invade her eyes. She sighs deeply, thoughtfully, looking at the sterile building across the way. "I don't know if you ever met Chris and Julie... but they were living together in my apartment this year... and they had been together for over a year... and Julie broke up with Chris just before she moved back home for the summer." She pauses to light the cigarette she had removed from the pack and drank deep the smoke before continuing. "Chris had been one of my real good friends this year so I've kind of been trying to take care of him because of the break-up and all, which mostly involves a lot of ridiculous drinking and absurd arguments about whether or not God is a person." She looks like she is considering offering her perspective on this point, but recalls her point. "The thing is that, while Chris is the person that I really care about and want to support, I really as far as the relationship thing goes identify with Julie, because there are certain similarities. But well the real point is that, I was trying to make Chris feel better one night, and I ended up making myself feel awful." In the pause between sentences where a period would traditionally belong, I constructed this horrendous and elaborate fantasy involving ugly rebound sex. To my relief, she explained, "Because all of a sudden I understood how much I had fucked up in the process of breaking up with you, and I realized how much wrong I had done you then, because I saw it in Chris and well.. I felt pretty shitty about myself. And I guess I want to give a over-a-year-and-a-half-due apology for all the shit. And that's all."
She starts to get up to leave, as she has surpassed all she needed to say and treaded into words she hadn't totally meant to reveal. I sit, vaguely shocked. There was a seemingly interminable period of my life that really only took a handful of months when I wanted nothing more for her to really understand what she was putting me through. I couldn't fathom the conditions that would give her this perspective. Actually, that is not true. I had pictured the circumstances, and they tended to involve her having her heart metaphorically drop-kicked by a brief lover of whom she was fatuously fond. I certainly would not have wanted Chris to be hurt for Kate to understand, though I could tell by Julie's demeanor that he loved on borrowed time. I looked up at Kate, standing slightly above me and croak, "Tell Chris I am sorry. He seemed like a nice guy and... he didn't deserve to be hurt like this. I know he loved her very much." She nods her head sympathetically, mentally reliving a conversation with him. Kate returns to the present situation and looks to me curiously.
I cock my head to one side as though I am listening critically to a strange sound and evaluate how I feel about her apology. It would have meant a great deal more had it been delivered when I actually needed it. Of course, she was not in the proper place to give this to me; to understand how it feels. Nor can I honestly say that I would have understood the apology as it was intended without self-servingly misunderstanding it. I try to convey to her how I am feeling, saying the words before my brain can evaluate their meaning and stop my tongue. "I do not fault you for leaving me. I came to understand a long time ago that this was something you saw need to do." She slightly nods her head to this statement, sadly. "However, I did fault you for not leaving me completely and I think this may be part of your point. I guess I am glad that you know all of this now. Is it trite and pathetic if I say I am sorry if this situation that was born of your consolation of Chris hurts you and makes you feel bad about yourself? After all, I have confessed to wanting you to disappear at times and of lashing out and causing you pain. So, I am not sure if it matters to you that you induce compassion in me and I don't want you to hurt, but this is the case." I touch her hand lightly with these words and she gently smiles in the direction of the bench. I bite the side of my lip as I say, "I don't know if I am exactly ready to give sweeping forgiveness to you yet, if this is what you wanted. I don't know if my forgiveness would affect you one way or another. You hurt now because you caused me pain in the past, which seems like a means to self-forgiveness but not an end. You atone. You feel that you have done something 'wrong' and you wish things had been different. Remorse. That may be all you need. Philosophers - don't ask me which ones as I am taking this from The Simpsons - believed that a soul had to be earned through suffering and struggle... I guess the end result is something to the extent of: I truly would like to forgive you, but am not honestly ready to do so and to do so now would be premature and would likely cause future problems in our friendship... if a friendship is what you wish to build toward." I add hopefully, "In the future, when I am ready, I think I will forgive you, if this is indeed something that you desire." I go over the words I have said, trying to sort reality out of them.
She weights my words as well, taking a deep drag off her cigarette and watching the bluish-gray smoke spiral out of her mouth. "While I very much appreciate what you have been saying, I was not asking for forgiveness when I apologized." I frown, as I have been made vulnerable. I bite my lip hard to avoid letting the emotion ooze out of me or explode. "I guess my point in apologizing was partly to acknowledge my wrong to the person that I wronged - you - and partly in the hope that, as it is helping to straighten me out, it will help to straighten you out, and to stem your pain." I begin to tell her that that wound has been healed for a while and the time away from her has shown me that but she silences me. "There is a Velvet Underground song, of which the lyrics are: 'Jesus, help me find my proper place. Help me in my weakness because I'm falling out of grace.' It is a fucking amazing song and it is something that I have been praying even before I heard it. I guess when I am apologizing I think that in some way I am putting my past actions into their proper place: in my mind and in yours." She gives an emotionally charge glance at me, meeting my eyes for only a second. She grabs her stuff and walks quickly to the nearest door.
She does not look back.

That brings us to right about now. As to where we been brought, I haven't the slightest clue. Emily had this to say about the whole affair (liberally edited because I can.)

She is baffled by Kate.

I do not completely understand Kate, though I never have. It is possible that this is a real step and it is also possible that you are setting yourself up for a blow as you said. I think, however, that it is immensely good that you are not simply willing to forgive her and get on with things. I think that that would be ultimately hurtful to you and dishonest for her. Thus I commend you in this matter. I simply cannot understand this though... not you mind you, I completely understand/stood your part of all this. But her? I cannot fathom this. It does not seem that she has undergone some intense and mind-altering change and yet this letter is completely breaking from the character that I understand to be Kate in this time period. She doesn't apologize for anything that has happened recently only for hurting you then and for handling things badly. This also seems odd to me, though at the same time I think that perhaps accepting past transgressions is much easier than dealing with those that are closer to home and more recent. I also believe you to be right in the fact that there are very few ideal environments for the two of you at this point and also that seeing each other before she leaves for New Zealand would and could be significantly rushing whatever has the potential to redevelop. I am, I realize, not telling you anything that you do not already know, but still I am keeping myself awake and thinking all this out.
You do of course realize that there could not not be any interaction that you have with Kate that I don't have some feelings about and since everyone is being so bloody honest I will follow suit, though I admit its not as exciting as one might think. This interaction doesn't really concern me overly much. (I know that's not juicy in its honesty but its true all the same). I think that perhaps there is a glimmer more hope for you guys than there has been previously, but I am not 100% willing to make that judgment. I admit that there is smallish fantasy (kind of like smallish bees up one's nose, the ones that make you itch and feel like you need to sneeze) that worries that all of a sudden Kate will be Katie again, she will repent, you will realize what I've been convinced you knew all along and you will return to her. Then I wake up. Seriously it's a small part that I'm willing to disregard in its possible stupidity. So that's my honesty. Earth dinging isn't it.