Cutting Ties

Last night I went to my cousin’s birthday barbecue and helped put their three rambunctious children to sleep; it gave me an opportunity to review my situation and begin to think about what is important to me, and how I should go about with my personal relationships.

An extended session with Jim yesterday proffered up more challenging points of conversations, and we decided we were going to spend the next two weeks evaluating exactly why dismembering close relationships is so appealing to me–well, I shouldn’t say “appealing” so much as “necessary”.

My vindictive streak, which I believe is becoming gradually just another machination of a larger move towards cruelty in general, is more hurtful towards me than anyone else. So much for vindictiveness, when you’re the one cowering in the corner, wishing rain and thunder on everyone else, only to have sunshine in the end. It’s baffling how one can feel so angry at everyone else for perceived wrongs, and yet continue to have meaningful relationships with them.

Jim is becoming more opinionated as to my relationship with Peter. he told me yesterday that it wasn’t a good idea to even engender the idea of traveling to Toronto since he thinks I have to start looking for realistic goals. And I think he’s right, I think it would be very nice to come and see him, but I know it probably will not happen and I’m OK with it. And conversely, I wouldn’t want Peter to come down here, on account that I have no concrete way of doing anything with him, unless I have my own mode of transportation. That, and I think he would be very disillusioned and bored with this place, as it goes against everything Peter believes in. I also don’t want him around my family, for I feel I would never be able to escape their negative criticism of me having him down here.

Jim said that there are no easy escapes. To just up and leave without any pretext is to make the same mistakes which doomed me for the last couple of years–to Lubbock, to Isaac, to the Cities, to Austin. And to want to leave and impose myself on two middle-aged gay men in a foreign city in Canada is irrational, no matter how much it seems I know Peter and David. The reality is that I’m still a stranger, and that they don’t know how I work privately on a day-to-day basis, aside from what I tell them, and I don’t think they would know how to react to me being in their home city of which they know consummately better than I do.

Besides, visiting someone from my remote location here in Texas is more expensive than I initially conceived of it as being. I’m somewhat sad at this realization but it’s OK: I’ve been preparing myself for the reality of the situation for some time now.

It’s probably better for us in the end: I would rather talk to Peter via IM, or even talk to him on the phone, but this last option I can’t do very much, or even want to for that matter. My mother has said to me to not get my hopes up talking to him, even though she likes him very much, for he is too far away, and belongs to someone else besides, and that has made me reconsider everything as well. You can’t love someone, you really can’t, if they love someone else. And I know Peter and David are committed to one another.

That being said, I will now only talk to Peter via IM and email. No more phone calls. It’s just not possible anymore.