Wishing for Closure

So, I wrote John an e-mail. Very simple:

I hope you are doing OK and life is finding some semblance of normal.
I know you got hit really hard.

I think we both realize that we wanted different things from each
other. I've tried to move on without involving you, but I seem to be
stuck. If you have any sense of what happened, why, I would appreciate
closure.

I think it is a good e-mail, but after I got a major panic attack. But here's the bizarre thing: I didn't send it. I hit "save draft" so think about sending it, and it gave me a panic attack.

I want closure, for lots of things. I want happy closure for my dad--a clean bill of health that says "you will be well--what we were worried about is not going to happen; you will be well." I want to see Cheney and Bush and Rove and John Yoo and Judge Bybee in jail. Closure. Tying up the loose ends.

But I keep yearning for closure with John in a way that feels like it is keeping me from moving fully forward. Wanting my dad to be well, that feels totally normal. My aching for closure with John, it feels neurotic. One step away from Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. I know that my behavior, outside of this blog and what I've inflicted on my girlfriends, has been somewhat normal (I may have sent a few too many e-mails at the end, but he was having a rough time and several of my friends, whom I trusted, thought I owed him more than I sent, although they've all since taken to roundly criticizing him, which I hate because it means I end up defending him, when I'm too hurt to want to take his side), but my feelings have not been normal.

I wish he would e-mail and say "It's not me; it's you. I'm sorry--you deserve bettered, but I know it could never be with me." Or even "Hey--look--you were right. I just wasn't attracted to you. And, again, you were right--I hoped I would be, because it would have been nice to be with someone a little less crazy for once, but I wasn't attracted to you. And when I realized that something elusive was missing, I should have told you instead of just disappearing. But I figured it would hurt you to confirm the insecurities that I knew you had. I didn't want to be the one to tell you that you are right--you aren't lovable, at least not to me, and I figured you'd take that to mean you aren't lovable at all" Or something. Whatever it was. Something to put a period on the end of the sentence.


The things is, I loved him. And I still do, a little. I seem to be incapable of just getting pissed off, putting an easy label on it and moving on. I'm excellent at doing that people I've never cared about, but once I've cared about someone, I always see the good as well as the bad and the extenuating circumstances.


Back in college, I took a little, cheap, non-greyhound bus, overnight, to a large city that a friend lived about an hour from. The bus stop wasn't the greyhound one, but when I had given her the address, she hadn't written it down, thinking she knew where the bus stop was. This was long before ubiquitous cell phones defined our communication, and my friend was 5 hours late. 5 hours. I was frustrated, and when she arrived, I started to take her head off, until I realized, she'd spend the last 5 and a half hours driving around looking for me. She was nearly frantic and she also felt bad, and I had just made it worse by not thinking through her side before I let my temper get the better of me. I can still see her face, her car, the 3 super-big-gulps she'd drunk in her dazed attempt to find me. And somehow, I learned that lesson too well--I instinctively come up with extenuating circumstances that explain someone else's behavior. I almost never judge people I love. I have no problem immediately judging Republican politicians. But maybe if I could be even minorly capable of judging. Of judging John. Intellectually, I think he treated me badly. Emotionally, I can't believe that he would hurt me like that, unless he had a good reason, even as my intellect laughs at the justification. None of which brings me closer to my search for closure. And I've sort of accepted that he won't help with that. I expect it will take me falling for another guy to get over him, and I fear that not being over him will prevent any other guy from being in the vicinity.