A moment of clarity

"Once we accept the fact of loss, we understand that the loved one obstructed a whole corner of the possible, pure now as a sky washed with rain"--Albert Camus

Yesterday I had a brief email exchange with Glenn about the fact that he hasn't sent me the paperwork for the ring yet. I resented having to ask him for the papers a second time. Throughout our entire relationship, he insisted on doing things in his own time and that made me the nag, usually because the things he didn't want to do involved our home, our future or something I needed. Just this once, why couldn't he step up and save me the emotional energy of having to bug him?

As much as I wanted the email to reflect my annoyance and residual anger, I somehow managed to keep it light. He wrote right back and apologized for not mailing the papers sooner, and he asked how I was doing. He said he hoped everything was going well for me.

I know he was just being polite, but it would have been easier if he had been brusk and mean. Then I could have deleted his email without feeling anything. Instead, it brought up the old feelings of love and loss. I wanted to write back and say "What I really meant is I love you and I miss you," but of course I didn't. Instead, I just cried silently at my desk. I sat there wondering how long it will be until stupid emails won't make me cry anymore. How long until I don't want to say--don't even feel--the love or the missing him? It's why I didn't want to email him in the first place, why I don't talk to him anymore.

But after the tears came a moment of clarity, when I realized what a small part of my life is taken up with anything Glenn-related now. It used to eat up every moment of the day--now it's peripheral at best and only sticks its tweedlenose into the picture every so often. I'm at peace with the way things are--I've even accepted that the trollop played a necessary (if shitty) part in the whole thing. If it weren't for her, Glenn and I would probably be married and he would have found an even more painful way to express his feelings, but after the fact, when everything would have been more complicated.

My shrink says that I'll always have a place in my heart for Glenn and I think she's right. At least I can feel the twinges and know that I loved him thoroughly, completely, with absolute trust. I put it all on the line and I lost everything, but what I have now is extra meaningful because I got here on my own terms. And I didn't need to nag anyone along the way.