Recycled Relationships

Take notes, take scrupulous notes. That’s what plane rides are for. And sleep. In a flat bed, one is supposed to write and then sleep. But there is a note staring at her, and that’s when ride becomes a bit of contemplation, about life, feelings and everything in between.

He is bored, puzzled by her lack of response to his last note. When a picture arrives he jumps on a note writing mode. “This made me smile. Where are you headed? I miss you. I wish you were here with me.” These are the type notes that she used to receive often. They mean nothing. Nothing except that he is starting to miss her and he’s hoping that when he returns she is there for him to bang. Simple. There is no emotions involved even though “I miss you” is an emotion. Now the note stares at her back as she contemplates a response, or lack of.

This has happened so many times, each time the in-between stage gets longer. He disappears right after he declares love, each time longer. But she forgives him anyway. She forgives him because she always loves him. Loved him. Until now. She stops forgiving.

There are many types of relationships. She enjoys one that recycles. Recycled relationships are relationships that one establish with others over a span of time. Sometimes crossing decades. They are the same people, but older, and they are of different types of relationships. RR. She is still friends with most of her ex’es. She does not believe in finality. She moves on but these historical figures, figures that are once inside of her body, remain peripherally. The types of images fade, but the names remain. She assigns an alphabet to each of them, mostly are related to their first or last name initials, but sometimes it’s just an alphabetical letter, in sequential order. Like D. D should be either T or P, T is his first name initial, P is his last name initial, but she names him D, because she’s not dated that many alphabets yet. P or T would be jumping ahead. That's being presumptuous. There is also J, which, she decides to discount him from her population. Technically speaking, there are a F and a G, but they don’t qualify. They have not triggered her emotional attachment.

She wants to write back to B. The one who overpromises and underdelivers. “How do you run a company when you over promise and under deliver? How do your clients feel about it? Shouldn’t it the other way around? How do you decide to fit me into your rotations? Am I on your extended schedule now? You can remove me from the list. I have no desire to ever sleep with you, ever again.”

She wants to do that but it will make her sounds like she cares. She has stopped caring a few weeks back. When her last emotional email to him has been finally constructed, she has been relieved. It is a final goodbye. She has done it three times to herself over the course of two years. She wants to leave him each time. She writes to him that it’s over, and he ignores it, silence. Then one day she writes again, in an nonchalant way, and she did not expect him to respond, but he does, quickly, as if he is sensing that she's forgiven him, or until he starts to miss her, until she's in his rotation schedule,, and then he comes back into her life, acts as if no time has passed, and he has never received the note from her about her leaving him. He acts as if he still is seeing her. So many times he has hurt her intentionally or unintentionally. So many times she has gone back to him, each time she has thought he will change. But he never does.

He’s a sociopath.  He’s a machine, he simulates emotions. Just like his handle, and the company he runs. It’s funny how it all just starts to make sense for her now. He’s not a human being. That’s why he is able to function the way he does. He has no emotional range. He has an on and off switch. He is either on or off. He has no empathy, he has no idea how much his action hurts her. It's not just that he disappears, it's that his action completely contradicts his prior actions. When she pleads, asks to be seen after he cancels on her, without even telling her that he's about to cancel, after he says that he'd call but does not, and after she calls and does not reach him, over and over again. It is as if he's two people, one loves her, one does not even know her acknowledge her existence. No amount of Zoloft can cure her. Her cure is the final exit from his orbit. She has to break free of him to be her again.

Understanding him makes her feel more in control of her destination. She can make a change, a different path and thought process are slowly taking shape. Rather than visualizing him as this person who has hurt her, she pities him. He who cannot really understand human emotions and does not understand how his careless, compassion-less, self-interested lifestyle affects others. She has no use for him in her life, except for as an ordinary friend. She has demoted him this time for good. She used to think he and she have a go at normalcy, true love, but instead what she used to feel is nothing but a one-sided illusion. He has finally destroyed her faith in him. In their relationship. 

C is a lesser severe version of B. C likes her, but he is willing to let her go because he knows his limit. He can't be emotionally involved and sexually involved at the same time. He connects with her, and when he connects with someone emotionally, he has to shut off his physical side. C likes her too much to lose her. C shares his life with her. C likes to tell her about his comings and goings. C cannot figure out how to balance the two, so he chooses to be just a friend. She is comfortable with that arrangement. He likes her like he likes a cat. She wants to be held by C and be scratched by C. She wants to straddle C and tell  him to hug her, and kiss her forehead and tell her everything is going to be alright. C will not do that of course. But she fantasizes it anyway. C has a limited emotional range. He knows where his limit ends. She can respect that. At least he's honest and he keeps the communication channel open. He does not mislead, like B does.

When her son was very sick, she used to spend days and nights in the hospital, with him. The poor thing almost died. He was in PICU for years. She used to hold him and cuddle him and pray that one day he would be healthy. She used to have no time to cry, no time to dream, no time to sleep, no time to shower off the vomit from her hair, vomit from her sick baby boy. She used to be a completely different person. Her life has been a pure survival game. When he is finally better, she is awaken from a nightmare and she is trying to find herself again. In her path of recovering her old memories, she meets these men from her distant past, when her only worries is to find love. Like a twenty year old, she falls back into hands of men who are used to use women for their own sexual satisfaction. Just like the twenties, she finds no love, she finds sex. And men who discard women like used rag. 

There is a lesson to be learned from this. That is true love does exist, but it does not exist with someone like her. The timing is off. Way off. There is no hope no second chances. Certainly not with those who failed her once. Those recycled relationships do not represent anything new. It's just a memory of past failed attempts to love.  In that regard, she has finally smartened up. She is finally able to release the toxin and give her new life a chance. She will recycle relationships, but each time, relationship will evolve into different forms and meanings. Each time, a new type of relationship emerges. Each time, she takes back a bit of control of her own life. Until she can find herself again.