Today was a bit rougher than i thought it would be. I knew i was going to have to drive through my ex’s home town of Olympia. That includes Tumwater, Olympia and Lacey. Each town has more than a few memories. But it was going to Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge that i was simultaneously looking forward to, and dreading, the most.

When i got there, a fog had begun to set. It wasn’t much but the air was thick with humidity and the wind cut through everything i had on as soon as i got out of my car. The smell of decay immediately hit me and reminded me of home. If you’ve never lived near the coast or a bayou, you won’t understand. It’s just something that’s part of living and being near the water.

Nisqually is an absolutely gorgeous place filled with more beauty than i can describe, so i won’t. I’ll post some pix eventually but probably not for a few days. If you know my G+ feed, you can see them there.

I am over my breakup. Thanks to some things my ex said to me and everything she refused to acknowledge or take accountability for in July, she managed to sever the last of the emotional ties i had to her. I guess i shouldn’t be surprised. After seven months of PURE silence from her, her email to me is titled, “You still don’t get it.” I cannot make up this shit.

Nonetheless, driving through Olympia was a bit tougher than i thought it would be. I had to stop at the Tumwater Fred Meyer and memories of a much happier time were on each aisle.

But the Tumwater Fred Meyer was a piece of cake compared to the memories of walking through Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. It’s such an odd experience to be surrounded by such beauty and equally haunted by memories.

Thanks to the correspondence my ex and i had in July, I now remember something with a brilliant clarity. I had pushed this memory aside because it was too painful. I didn’t want to remember it but she forced me to. It’s last October after she’s sent that hatchet job of an e-mail. I think this is the last weekend i’ll ever see her but i don’t know it at the time. I think she does. We’re sitting in her car about to go into PetSmart. Her beautiful, beautiful betta had died and she wanted to replace it with some others. It broke my heart when he died and even now, it makes me sad just thinking about it. He was really special.

It’s one of the first rains of the season and we’re trying to repair things. She looks at me and says she has the right to “…do what I want with who I want whenever I want.” I had nearly forgotten this but somehow she reminded me of it in July. When i miss her, i simply go back to this, among other moments. I latch onto her absolute stupidity and cruelty in this moment and in doing so, the Abyss will never claw and scrape me back into its embrace again.

That is her idea of “repairing” a relationship. No. That’s her idea OF A RELATIONSHIP. I am so deep into coping strategies and my own insanity at the time that i do not respond to it for what it is. Rutting like an animal in a field with whomever you want whenever you want is not a relationship. Is it freedom? Yeah- i guess so. But by definition, if that’s your idea of freedom, then you are incapable of and you are unworthy of anything else. There’s a reason they’re called “relationships” and not “i’ll-rut-and-fuck-anything-that-moves-ships”.

But i don’t want to lose her and i do not want to hurt her. She is my best friend. She is the woman i’ve waited my entire life to meet. I’ve been trying for years to find a job and move closer to her and when i think of my life and my future, she is always there. She is the last person i see when i close my eyes and she’s the first person i will see when i wake up. I may care for and even love others but she is my foundation, my closest friend, my sweetest lover and each of those are so deeply intertwined that to try to separate any one of them is to destroy all of them. No one will ever mean as much to me as she does and i will always love her more than anyone else. Period. Every major choice i’ve made for years is with her and our relationship first and foremost in mind.

But this thing she says- and it makes no sense. Looking back, it was one of those moments where her insanity and my insanity (in the form of coping strategies) slam into one another.

And i said nothing.

Almost nothing. I am so utterly and deeply confused by this. It makes as much sense as the heroin addict that says that they get high because it’s beautiful and shuts out all of the ugliness in the world. It is wholly and utterly detached from reality. My mind grabs a shard of what little is left of my dignity and i tell her, “The guiding principle i live with is that every major decision i make in my life, professional and personal, is that i consider the health of our relationship first and foremost. Can you promise me the same?”

She squirms in her seat and she will not make eye contact with me. She was angry. How dare i hold her accountable to something as obsolete as ethics? How dare i hold a mirror to her and force her to see how banal and idiotic her idea of, “…do what I want with who I want whenever I want” is? Actually the latter didn’t happen. To this day, i have no reason to believe she’s ever stared into that mirror objectively. She has submitted her will time and time again to someone else whose lack of confidence is surpassed by his lack of ethics. He has fed her cancer time and time again and dragged her down to his pathetic level. He is a buzzword fuck fundamentalist and i’ll go into him some other time.

She finally acquiesces by muttering, “Yes”. It’s said with the sincerity of a child that’s been forced to hear their own words.

Anyone that thinks an “open relationship” is a relationship at all is stupid. That’s what’s called a “Friends with benefits”… and that’s what she told me all i was to her in that mail she had sent me a couple of weeks prior and that all i was entitled to with her was, “vanilla sex” (verbatim). Anyone that tries to bully and force that (an “open relationship”) upon someone else, especially someone they have been with for four and a half years and have had many discussions of a life together is a bully. Anyone that believes that an “open relationship” is ethical, moral or sustainable isn’t just stupid, they’re fucking stupid.

It is approaching the anniversary of the carnage and destruction of our relationship. Logically i know that i dodged a cancer that would have left me a shallow, hollow husk like the ones that held/ hold sway over her. But emotionally… well, i loved her so very, very much. Not the new personality she declared she had last October but when she was a woman; when we were the closest of friends, the sweetest of lovers and when any thought i had of the future had us together. I am proud of the progress i have made. I am proud that i have salvaged myself from the brink of insanity and death itself. I’m not happy that i have gained all of the weight that i lost but at least i’m going to the gym again and hope to be able to run a mile w/o any problems in the next month.

I’m starting to feel like myself again- that the brightness and stupid-at-times-yet-occasionally-charming-innocence that i carry, is coming back. I’m writing a bit more these days and my urge to paint is coming back. My libido is slowly coming back and emotionally, i’m finally able to date again without any thought to my ex whatsoever.

Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge is a profoundly stunning place. It is a blend of decay, growth, change and the cycle of life is spoken there with absolute clarity. It is the place where the memories of a woman that once meant more to my than my own life will always remain- but as i find love again, those memories will sink into the mud and the tides will ebb and flow until only the hint of her remains. And if not there then at least elsewhere new experiences and memories will break through and open themselves to the light and brightness that life and that i have to offer. I will always be sad that she was not there to be a part of that but i’ll be far more happy in knowing i’ll find others more capable of honesty, friendship, critical thinking, integrity and commitment than she is/ was.

This is about the one year mark of her absolute, deliberate and calculated destruction of our relationship. Overall i’m doing very well but the closed wounds feel… well, they feel a bit raw right now. I guess i’ll always love and miss her from the days when she was a woman but… and it still hurts to acknowledge this, i think i fell in love with an act… with an illusion. After all, who in hell tries to bully the person they claimed they wanted to spend their life with into this belief that they have the right to fuck whomever they wanted, at any time (and i think she had been convinced by others that i supposedly had that right, which is too bizarre to address) and that being a swinger was something they were going to do and i had no right to have any say in the matter?

Well, if you surround yourself with good people, you’re likely a good person. If you surround yourself with diseased and broken people, then you’re likely a diseased and broken person yourself. All i have to do is look at the people in my life to know where i stand. And looking at her friends, especially the ones that believe being a cum dumpster or jizz dispenser at a swingers club is somehow an affirmation of “femininity” and “self actualization” (her words) are a reflection of who she is and i think it’s the best that she can do.

It is near the anniversary of her rage and cruelty. My life is inexorably and forever changed. I do not care for her and whether she is alive or not is of no concern of mine. But this anniversary all of her cowardice, malice, stupidity and pride have stirred my passions. The hurt will go away in a few days; it always does.

And as it does and my future opens to me again, i’m looking forward to meeting women that are sincerely feminine, intelligent, kind, honest, self actualized and aspires to be more than being a cum dumpster at a swingers club. And while i have no idea if polyamory is in my future, if it is, those women will understand that the “amory” part of polyamory is more important than the “poly” part and that the “ethical” part of “ethical non-monogamy” is vastly more important than the “non-monogamy” part. And if they disagree, then not only will they never have anything to contribute to my life but i’ll never respect them either. So it’s win-win.

I do miss her at times, even now. It would have been nice to have gotten married at Nisqually or somewhere like that but that person is gone. Thankfully the beauty and the lessons of the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge will always be there.