Lost Cause

My kids were at their Dad's for a week after we got home from Maine. They got back to my house yesterday, just in time to get ready for the first day of school. About an hour after they returned, I found my daughter in her room, sitting at her desk, writing a letter to our friend in New England. It just about broke my heart. I tried to talk to her about it -- asked if she missed him -- but she said no. She said she was just writing because she told him she would. My daughter doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve quite like her Mama, so maybe that's why she didn't admit to missing him. Or it could be because she was worried it would upset me. I don't know. I do know that when we were eating dinner at Pasqual's tonight, he came up in conversation, and she said, almost under her breath: "I don't get it. If you love each other you should be together."

I didn't say anything in response (other than "I know, honey") because I didn't trust myself, in this moment, to say anything useful to her. I will return to the topic with her when I feel like I can impart something of value, because I want my kids to learn that it is possible to love someone so hugely you can't stand the thought of living your life without them and then have to do just that. I didn't know that was possible before I met him, and had I known that, maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have spent quite so many years in a relationship that was alternately wildly satisfying and wildly unsatisfying.

Then again, I reckon there's a reason for that too -- a reason why that felt perfectly natural. At therapy this morning, my therapist drew a parallel between the kind of love my parents offered me -- inconsistent, often neglecting my best interests, saying one thing and doing another -- and the love offered by my last boyfriend.

Part of the problem was that I always saw the best parts of him, even when not seeing the damaged parts meant accepting behavior that wasn't acceptable to me. I always saw who he was on the inside -- which was pure goodness and love -- often failing to really take in what his actions that were not in line with those qualities meant for me or for our relationship. I always hated it when people said I could do better, because I knew he was just as good as everyone else, but it turns out, he didn't know that. And without the ability to feel worthy of continuously giving and receiving love, we were ultimately doomed, because I have that ability -- I've worked so hard to get it -- and I want to be with someone who can be right there with me.

And while I will never stop believing he is capable of dealing with his past trauma, of conquering his nearly lifelong habit of numbing by using various substances, and of claiming love and belonging as his birthright, he hasn't gotten serious about doing any of that. So at the moment it feels more like this Beck song speaks the truth as it stands today. Not that he can't change, because he can, I believe he can. But he hasn't. And if facing up to walking away from a love like ours doesn't do the trick, it's hard to believe anything else will, either:

Your sorry eyes cut through the bone
They make it hard to leave you alone
Leave you here wearing your wounds
Waving your guns at somebody new

Baby you're lost
Baby you're lost
Baby you're a lost cause

There's too many people you used to know
They see you coming they see you go
They know your secrets and you know theirs
This town is crazy; nobody cares

Baby you're lost
Baby you're lost
Baby you're a lost cause

I'm tired of fighting
I'm tired of fighting
Fighting for a lost cause

There's a place where you are going
You ain't never been before
No one left to watch your back now
No one standing at your door
That's what you thought love was for

Baby you're lost
Baby you're lost
Baby you're a lost cause

I'm tired of fighting
I'm tired of fighting
Fighting for a lost cause

I am, in fact, tired of fighting for a lost cause. I didn't believe -- didn't want to believe -- that we were a lost cause. But when I look at the evidence in front of me, I don't know what else you'd call it...