when wishing hurts

something is happening. something is happening.something is happening.

something small but important is happening.

last year i let go of one of the most important relationships of my life - after being shut out for 5 years. i let my cousin FJ go.

and the irony is that the person at the center of our problems is also the one bringing us back together. he is the one who is sick. and getting better. getting better well and well.

because of this family trauma, we spoke for the first time in over 5 years. on the phone. wow. and she sounds like ... like FJ. and i could hear that she was smiling while she was talking and we only talked about our loved one who is sick. but talking to her was strange. i felt like we had never stopped talking. if i'd had to have spoken to her a year ago i would probably have wept. but this week, i understood something in me has changed. i listened and then i heard and then got on with the business of getting on.

i still don't know how i feel. i love her. i love you FJ. dearly. i think that will always be true. theres something about blood and history together which means that even in the shadow of damage, the essence of the relationship is still there. but its hard now.

even though something is happening (and i am grateful for that), i am also coming to understand that i will always love you because thats the truth of us, but. but. but. we will never be the same again, you and i. you hurt me. you hurt me. you hurt me. your rejection of me is a wound that took me years just to acknowledge you inflicted, and now that my tears have stung it clean, i know that i just dont have the energy to reinvest in hoping that we can resurrect soemthing.

just the idea of hope. its exhausting.

you put a gun to my head and made me walk off the cliff. and i free-fell for 5 years. i fell. and it was only 3 months ago that i realized i never hit the bottom of the canyon, but in fact, i had learnt to fly.

so the irony is what you did made me stronger. cleaner. firmer. so then i could let you go.

i. let. you. go. fj.

it was the most difficult thing and it was the most essential thing. something i never ever wanted to do, i never thought i could know how to do. and now that i have i just cant go back. it would take too much. and i just want to put what positive energy that i have somewhere else for a while.

i'm not sure i care that what is broken between us can be fixed. what i am trying to say is that i have picked up my shattered bits and have been making my own mosaic out of them, so please dont ask me to unpick that now. maybe our stories will intertwine in a way that is honest and beautiful and necessary - maybe - one day. but i am happy for that to be organic and fortuitous and for that to be years from now ... if ever - as long as its not wished for. i dont wish for it. wishing hurts. and i'm pretty sure it isn't very useful. it helped me to disbelieve your lack of loyalty. it made me feel worth more to you than i now know you feel i am.

i know. i know that people make up after they break up. but its never the same again. because the trust has to be rebuilt. our shared past has been dishonoured. and while i am not cut up about it anymore, i just cannot forget that. that you did that. and that you have never properly explained why. i still dont truly know why. i need facts FJ.

in truth i dont want the current gaping hole between us to be the end of our story ... equally though i dont want a shared future where we can only be civil to each other. polite family. to me, that's a sham and an insult. i'd rather take nothing at all. give me the blood and guts but dont give me less. and dont imagine that just because time passes that one day i might be able to act like none of this ever happened. you changed me. i am more like you now. and i now know how to walk away too.