New information will come to light
Prophetic dreams are not usually something I can conjure up, and yet somehow, way back in January, there was prescience in my subconscious.
I was having regular nightmares, and upon the sage advice of my therapist, began noting them down in detail to gain a greater understanding. I listened to a Jungian podcast that insisted that there is meaning and logic to be derived from our dreams; that they are not merely a process of sorting information from our daily lives.
One of these dreams depicted a betrayal so great and so vivid that when I woke, it left me disturbed for days.
I dismissed it as impossible, and allowed myself to continue having fond and loving feelings for the person who had committed the atrocity. A perfect memory of an imperfect relationship.
But the body knows. And my horoscope, apparently, when it predicted this month that new information would come to light.
I met this man 6 years ago and ever since, I have been trying to work him out. Trying to uncover the depths of his being. I have to accept that part of the not knowing must have been part of the attraction; the mystery and intrigue allowed me to paint a picture and fill in the blanks with an elaborate fantasy of who he was.
As it turns out - it’s not that deep.
He met her 3 years ago, online. We were an established thing by then by anyone’s definition. And after what I’ve endured over that period of time - the surgery, meningitis, endless inflammation of the body - I really don’t need the painful details of what happened when.
He loves her, he thinks. He thinks. She’s of his culture and they have the same university degree, so she’s inspired him that he might be able to do something with his life after all.
I find myself remarkably uncurious about her. She had threatened to call me when she found messages from him chasing after me yet again - both she and I enablers in facilitating his on/off affairs, myself unwittingly - her, perhaps not so much.
She won’t call me, though. I know she won’t.
He always claimed he wasn’t a rock to be built on, and I should have believed him. I often felt utter elation to be around him and impending doom simultaneously. But I didn’t have all of the information that I do now, and I refuse to beat myself up.
Years and years diluted into 3 hours of conversation - the most honest and frank conversation we’ve ever had in which I acted as his therapist for the most part, and indeed the only conversation I can remember in which he took an active, genuine interest in me.
For the last 8 months I have wandered around like a zombie, thinking that I would never be happy again, mourning a person I thought I could never replace. But that person never existed.
So, if you’re reading this, and I know you will at some point - I have some things to say to you now that I have had time to reflect and digest:
You don’t know how to love, because you don’t love or even like yourself. I told you that I knew everything and nothing about you, but that I knew your soul. You tried to say you didn’t have one - classic deflection from you - and I told you not to do that. Don’t do it. You are terrified of being vulnerable, avoidant, and scared to let people love you. I’m sure that does come from childhood. But we cannot use our upbringing as an excuse to avoid connection indefinitely.
Culture is important to you, and I can empathise with that. I value cultural connection, too - but not at the expense of human connection. But you act like I haven’t been immersed in your culture for the last 20 years? I can cook your food - my stew chicken and dumplings were just as good as my ex’s nan’s (according to him.) Dumplings maybe even better. Your music is in my bones. Your home feels like my spiritual home. I have people there. Fambily.
You claim you’re now inspired to do something different with your life because you’re with someone from your own heritage who is ‘making it’ in the industry. You lack the grit and the determination it takes to make big changes in your life. You lack the empathy and drive it takes to make a difference to others. You lack the remorse that would be required to become a better person.
Right under your nose has been someone whose light and dark it was easier for you not to see. To actively block out. My struggle is immense and I know what it’s like to be actively discriminated against. Not just hardship, as you partially acknowledged, but discrimination. Maybe not in the exact same way as you feel it - but I get it. And I care enormously about it, but I don’t need to prove my credentials to you.
It was so easy for you to make me a one dimensional character than to see me as a whole person, in case that exposed your own vulnerability. In case we connected even deeper and it dispelled the idea you had of me as a white girl you wouldn’t take home to your mum but was good enough for everything else. Because we had a crazy connection. That was and is undeniable. And now you’ve lost it forever.
On the one hand, you'd make me out to be a highly moral person rather than seeing the full spectrum of my humanity - my flaws, my anger, my sadness, my jealousy, my worries. Absolving yourself of any responsibility towards me all at once.
But you would also use pejorative terms like that time you called me a snow bunny. Implying that I was only in this for the kind of casual, fetishised racism that is pervasive in dating and which I find utterly abhorrent. You’d make asides about me and other men, and now I know why.
Projection. The discomfort you felt in somehow betraying your own preconceived ideas of relationships and family meant that you had to convince yourself I was just as shallow as you were.
You spent so much time judging me for what you thought I wasn’t, and never took the time to get to know the real me. The me you saw this week that you said you’d never seen before. You are unworthy of her. You will never get to have her.
Even my body wasn’t immune to your exacting standards of who I should be - thick, but slim, but never too skinny. When I came out of hospital you told me I should put on some weight, but we both know that wasn’t out of concern for my wellbeing.
You said, with sincerity, that I was your favourite toy that you didn’t want to give up. So blissfully ignorant of the misogyny and outright arrogance in your words.
Your relief upon confessing was palpable. So readily did you answer my questions, almost to the point of taking pleasure in being helpful. That holiday after your brother’s death when I thought you were having a mental breakdown - were you with her? Yes, that’s right! Presumably you’d had versions of this conversation in your head for some time and it was annoying how you kept trying to manage my reactions and second guess what I might be thinking.
It must have been exhausting living with such duplicity for so long. It explains why your moods were always so unpredictable, and why I always felt like I was walking on eggshells around you. Why it felt, most of the time, like you didn’t even want to be here at all.
I had never seen you look so pathetic and weak - never really seen you at all. Never seen you this vulnerable, but it wasn’t the kind of vulnerability I ever wanted to see in you. You seemed to want to make me see you as bad - admissions of petty crime as a younger man came thick and fast.
I haven’t lived a sheltered life and I’ve been around criminals - reformed and otherwise. These admissions disappointed me not because you did the crimes or misdemeanours, but that you felt you couldn’t tell me because in your mind, I wouldn’t have understood because I’m not from your background. Grow up.
An old boyfriend of mine had over twenty convictions. I’m not soft.
There were morsels of contrition among the painfully hollow I’m so sorry Lucys. When we discussed our relationship dynamic you said you hadn’t been a good friend to me. You’re right, you weren’t even that. Flickers of self-awareness - when you said your behaviour towards me was akin to gaslighting. You think?!
There is much more to be said, and yet also very little. In a way I should thank you - you have finally released me. I have seen you for who you really are and I don’t like you. You have no power over me now. You can’t hurt me anymore.
I have carried corrosive anger in my life before and I know that it serves nobody - least of all me. I felt disgust towards you this week. I did feel anger, but much of that has dissipated. I feel a lot of relief, too.
And while I never want to see or speak to you again, I wish you no ill. I want you to have a good life. You owe it to yourself.
May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from harm.