I will invoke my own rule again.
I will cut off the elephant’s head
and mount it to my wall
there is no tension, or unspoken truth
left standing in this hall
And so, I raise my sword.
_____
“When you call me out, you are judge, jury, and executioner. You’re putting me on trial in that very moment. It hurts. And it hurts knowing how much of an impact my actions, and you having to call it out, has had on you.”
Then why am I here again?
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I wonder if you will arrive at the same question, because I am confused.
Confusion makes me investigative.
The above quote is extracted from an email I received after I cut contact with the most important person in my life. One day, they had visited from six hours away, and professed beyond-friendship before leaving when the weekend was over.
Eight years of being the person I called when someone else crossed a line was instantaneously sealed, and began again in a different form. There’s not really any going back from that, you know?
I don’t write 20,000-word essays and so I will not outline all of the ways this person supported me that are nearly unequivocable, but I hope that the nature of my writing means you can take my praise with equal weight.
“No, I’ll handle it,” was not an answer that they accepted from me if they could help it, and unlike with so many others in my life, I never incurred a debt for any of it.
It is said that a marker of intelligence is one’s ability to carry contradicting truths.
“You judge every last thing. I don’t want you to take it easy on me.”
Chiaroscuro.
Well, ladies and gentlemen,
I’m shaping up to be an absolute dumbass.
_____
1. Quickly after the nature of our relationship changed, I realized this person was not making a clean transition. They withheld the information from their long-term partner despite telling me they were ready to end that.
I am not someone that will swear to secrecy much, so after so much delay I closed the information gap. I reached out to the individual and said, “There is something you should know, but it can’t come from me.”
Then they finally acted.
2. They lingered in their shared apartment for over a month with no explicit plans for moving out until I said I could not comfortably participate in the situation anymore.
Then they finally acted.
3. They continued to visit said apartment for a cat they maintained a custody dispute over until I said I could not handle their unwillingness to let go and move forward.
Then, they finally acted.
All scenarios for which I got long, introspective apologies for, but by then the reality for me was unfortunately, after six months,
“I love you as an individual, but I am losing respect for you as a partner. I hate that.”
And as I stared at their tendency to only face uncomfortable decisions after conflict had already arisen, there was not really any going back from that, you know?
We had plans for them to move to my new state because I was not moving back. I introduced them to a job opportunity not dissimilar from the one they had been in for a decade. But I felt like I was pulling still, and I needed to stop. So, I accepted what I could not control, choked back every argument from the defense, and let it go. It disturbs even me how practiced and fast I am at that now. Nothing gets buried; it gets underlined, annotated, filed as closed, and I trust my own conclusions even when they fucking suck.
After an email that I read essentially as “I know all of this hurts you and I want to work through it together,” I again closed the book and nothing but an item that was left at the house was discussed for over three months.
I’ve already learned my lesson.
One day, I was talking to someone at the aforementioned workplace and was told “they’re starting here next week.”
Uh oh. I guess them not moving here afterall didn’t get relayed?
I left a little startled, then in a moment I remember to the exact foot of my location at the time because the possibility hit me like I had been sniped,
What if they are actually still moving here?
I then received the following message in the days afterward.
“I wanted to give you a heads up that I moved to [insert my town here] and need to return your key.”
[Insert multitude of unknowable reasons why that is happening here.]
Days passed. I couldn’t take that lightly, and so I just… told them that.
“I can’t tell you what you can or can’t do, but I am deeply uncomfortable with this.”
_____
Six weeks passed.
The first time we crossed paths locally, they seemed in a hurry to get out of there.
I messaged them that I was okay to clear the air if they wanted, and got no reply.
When they coincidentally came up on me in their car after I took a spill on the bike, they asked me if I needed a ride and hurried away when I told them, “Someone is on the way, but thank you.”
I messaged them asking if they wanted an expensive piece of equipment back or if they gave it to me, because it was never clarified.
Again, no reply.
We are predictably in the same place at the same time every week now; they talk casually with my new partner, and I don’t exist.
In their own words, “I want that indictment, regardless of how much it stings.”
But the only ones facing me are the elephants.
Did you even read the sign?
I will the machine. 