So where were you?
When all this I was going through
You never took the time
To ask me just what you could do

I NEVER MEANT TO FADE
--Fade ~ Staind

My Goddess that was draining!! An emotional drainfest right in the McDonalds parking lot. He asked for money...again! And I gave it to him (pause for Sybil’s urge to smack me in the head to pass) .........okay, I had a good reason. He said he was driving on fumes, and I checked, and the thought of my little boy walking along the windy, curvy roads with zero shoulder, was not the image I wanted while trying to go to sleep tonight. I didn’t give him enough to make a difference in anything past putting gas in his truck. I tried, again, to explain to him why it hurts me to give him money. It’s not that I don’t want to help, it’s that I do, I really do, but why should I? I just feel like I did my time trying to help him and am still doing it. Ten years and I accomplished nothing. I probably hurt and enabled him more than anything. But I have always...ALWAYS been there for him. I told him that he owed it to me to sit down and hear me out for just a minute. He said that he had just gotten a lecture from his counselor. I told him I needed to say some things and get them out and that I knew it probably wouldn’t matter because a lot of it has been said over and over. That pissed him off and he said, “what’s the point? What’s the point of saying what you have to say if it’s not going to make a difference?” And he was right. What is the point? So I got up to leave and I was upset. He told me not to leave before telling Nick goodbye. So we called him outside and I hugged and kissed him and started to walk away when Ian said he was sorry and hated asking me for money and was broke, broke, broke. He then made a comment to Nick that they may be doing some walking and that was when I gave in. Yeah, I suck!

We talked a little more. I told him that I was sorry that I saw the brilliance in him and wanted him to use it, to do something with it. Sorry that I came off as wanting him to change. And I told him that I loved everything about him except for what he does to himself. Sorry that everyone else seems to be able to go on with their lives and I’m just stalled. And he’s telling me that he is getting his act together but he doesn’t see that he’s doing it because he HAS to. I mean he REALLY has to or he goes to prison. And he’s so fucking NOT getting his act together since he recently put his truck in a ditch after only “a few beers.” AND, he has been in WAY MORE trouble the 3-1/2 years we have been apart than in the previous 10 when we were together. Anyway, I got really, really upset, almost to the point of hyperventilating. So I got in the car and drove to the bank, conveniently located right behind the McDonalds. I pulled back in the parking lot and stayed in the car because I really just wanted to give him the money and get the hell out of there. He came up to the car and, not even looking at him just held it out to him. He took it, touching my fucking hand, which he didn’t have to do because I was holding it by the extreme corner (see, stupid, stupid shit fucks me up) and he thanked me.

He reached into the car, to touch my shoulder and said, “you helped Dawn, you really did help,” and I pulled away from him and lost it. I lost it because he’s never said that to me, or anything near that. And because I can’t stand him touching me and he knows that. I’ve told him that. I can’t stand it because when he touches me, I don’t ever want him to stop. But he got mad and said, “how am I supposed to help you when you pull away from me like I have the bubonic plague or something?”

Me: I can’t do this.
Ian: What?
Me: I can’t do this. (Nick is standing right in the window staring at me and I’m crying. I don’t want him seeing me like that.)
Ian: Do what?
Me: I CAN’T make you understand how I feel. I CAN’T make anyone understand how I feel. I DON’T fucking understand the how or why of it so how can I ever bring someone in and make them understand?! NOBODY understands. I’m so fucking lucky to have the best friend in the WORLD who has been listening to this shit for 3-1/2 years but, she doesn’t fully understand. But she listens and she cares and I’m so fucking grateful for her and she understands more than anyone else does. I‘ve come to some conclusions about all of this and if I don‘t stay with them I get lost and fucked up I wish I could be like everybody else and just........
Ian: Ease on down the road?
Me: Yeah, hell, I’d settle for staggering down the road but it’s like I’m stuck at an eternally red light. And I know I shouldn‘t have gotten upset when you didn‘t help me get that bed. I mean, I shouldn‘t even have asked you. I realize you‘re not.....
Ian: Obligated?
Me: Yeah...obligated. It’s not your place to do those kinds of things for me anymore and I shouldn’t have asked.
Ian: I wanted to help you, I was just...really stretched for time...
Me: But I didn’t know that.
Ian: But I really did want to help. Look...do you want to talk about this on Sunday?
Me: (giving a perplexed look...a WTF look) Talk about what?
Ian: Do you want to just talk, when I have more time?
Me: I guess...I...yeah...okay.

My hands were really shaking and so I jokingly asked him if he had a Valium or something. He actually offered me an Ativan. I couldn’t believe it. Ian sharing his drugs! He made a point of telling me they were prescription so I wouldn’t give him any shit but, I wasn’t planning on it. It wasn’t much, just enough to “take the edge off.” I can’t really say that it helped but I did stop shaking.

I know there are about a million things I want to say on Sunday. I want him to let me go because he hasn’t fully done that. He may have “eased on down the road” but he still knows his way to my house. I want him to tell me that he doesn’t love me anymore. I can’t really imagine what he could say to me that would help except that. An ending, wrap up, something final. And I need to tell him that when I lost him I lost my best friend because every time something happens or I see a cool movie or read a good book or don’t feel good or somebody pissses me off or just basically every day that I exist, I want to tell him about it. I want to talk to him about it. But I can’t. And we can’t ever be friends, at least until there is no “feeling” left in either of us for the other. And possibly not even then considering I seriously doubt his wife would allow it.

So...what do I say on Sunday?

I’m finally leaving now....leaving with a bit of Buffy/Angel heartache.....

Angel: Am I a thing worth saving, huh? Am I a righteous man? The world wants me gone!
Buffy: What about me? I love you so much... And I tried to make you go away... I killed you and it didn't help And I hate it! I hate that it's so hard... and that you can hurt me so much. I know everything that you did, because you did it to me. Oh, God! I wish that I wished you dead. I don't. I can't.