Dear Roger: Proof That Sometimes "I'm Sorry" Isnt Enough

Writing has not been coming as easily lately, I have been a little bit distracted by memories of things and people in the past, and by current stress. The job search has not been going well, and to tell you the truth, I am in a bit of a rut. I have my ups and downs. You know how that is with us artistic temperament types. I get in a blue funk when things aren't flowing well and then its just a downward spiral until another flow of inspiration catches me and then I am off and running again. I firmly believe all great artists/writers performers have some degree of bi-polar disorder. We thrive on the highs and the lows often eat us. Its reflected in the songs and the writing and the looks of so many of them.

I have been grappling with my long running problem with my love life, or lack there of. I just do not play well with others. I am socially awkward, arrogant, a perfectionist, and I am less than truly motivated about getting out into the dating world. Its like shopping for a vehicle on a very restricted budget. I am a lower income, middle-aged, disabled, mom with a misanthropic nature, sarcastic bent, and I lust after younger men. That is like trying to shop for Porches with a used Kia budget. I keep getting shown broke down 40 year old Fords and Chevys that need ring jobs and that leak exhaust and often have hefty payment plans. I dont want to buy anything, I just want to take one of the really shiny, fancy ones for a test drive, maybe squall the tires and blast the stereo, but im not even allowed on the car lots of the models I want to take for a spin.

It was facing yet another Valentines day with a less than satisfactory ending, that led me to try and rebuild a bridge that I burned in a pretty damn spectacular manner almost a year ago.

I have missed my Cowboy. I have tried to forget about him and tried to put him out of my mind, and I have failed miserably. I miss him horribly. I threw away not only a lover like no other, but my best friend and voice of reason and sanity when I was at my worst.

I spent this last few days reading through all the old emails that survived the purge, reliving our moments and all the support and kindness he gave to me, and I thought about what a damn fool I had been. Yes, it wasn't perfect. Yes, it was pretty dysfunctional at times, but then what isn't?

He was everything I wanted, everything I needed, and nothing I could have. I loved him and I still love him. Perhaps because its that way that cowboys have of getting under your skin and living in your heart, but I realized I needed to try and salvage something with him, even if its just a casual email every now and then, so I drafted a "fall on my sword, I was an ass, please forgive me, I was a drunken idiot, I didn't mean it,(except the part where I said I loved you), apology" email. That was not easy for me to do, because I do not tend to apologize for things like that easily. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, but like a junkie craving a fix, I kept getting just enough of a taste to keep that dependency.

Friends sent me word of him,he showed up in news reports, I would log onto an old chat account and even though I had deleted him, it would show that he was on. It was so damn painful I couldn't cope and I knew I wasn't over him. So I wrote and sent the email the day before Valentines day, apologizing for my behavior and for all my failings. In a perfect world, he would be the same ole forgiving Cowboy that always forgave me my failings, he would be cautiously forgiving and we would begin rebuilding our friendship, and maybe this Summer plan on seeing each other for old times sake. In a less perfect world, he would have replied that too much damage had been done and that he just couldn't forgive me, and while that would hurt, and I would beat myself up over it emotionally for the rest of my life, I would at least know, but in my world? In my world? There has been nothing. The silence is deafening.

I talked to my son about what I did. He knows most of the story, after all, he lived through it. He watched my heart slowly break to pieces over the years, and he watched me fall apart after I made the phone call and the ramifications of what I had done sank in along with the shame that didn't allow me to respond to the emails wondering what the hell was going on. He knew I had felt crushing guilt for everything, and while he didn't agree with me apologizing, he has been supportive of me trying to fix the mess I made of the one thing I had that often brought me daily happiness in the form of emails or texts.

Its been a long week. I try to tell myself that I am not going to check that email a dozen times a day, that there is no email coming. I fucked up. I have lost him. The one friendship that I had managed to keep over a decade long and I blew it. I am going to close that email account at the first of the month, and that will be the end of things. Another step along my path that will lead away from things in my past to hopefully something or maybe someone in my future. Some days its hard to keep walking, but even when my boots are wanting to turn back, I guess I have to keep moving forward.