aDrenais' Book of Shadows

In one of her entries, Belle said:

I am, as N has often pointed out, a stayer and not a goer. I stayed far beyond when anyone else would have walked, and I even felt bad for going.

We were together for years, and I miss him. No - I miss what he was. He changed when his job changed, became harder, shallower, more defined by what he was rather than who he was, more concerned with appearances rather than reality. I miss the man I fell in love with. It has been ages since that man existed, however, and being single has been a process of accepting that man is not going to come bounding up to my door one morning, wearing the sloppy red fleece I always teased him about, clutching a cheap bunch of flowers and laughing with happiness when our eyes meet. I waited such a long time to see him again, changed so much about myself and my life in the hope he might reappear. It simply was torture in the end to be with someone who physically resembled the man I loved but fundamentally wasn't him (sorry, but I hated the ending of the last Doctor Who series, could not have accepted a fake Doctor at Bad Wolf Bay).

There is a saying that all past is fiction, and because that man doesn't exist, I am free if I so choose to weave him into my writing, bring him back to life, make him my own again. But it's only words on a page, innit?

I'm tofu nowadays, just reading the passage above made me cry for ages. I guess I'm a stayer as well, even though hardly any of my friends think it's a positive attribute. I stay despite the words of my closest friends, in spite of the fact that its 7 years of youth, even though each friend's wedding twists a knife deeper into my heart, when I have to smile and congratulate them so that the bitterness won't show.

I don't miss what he was; he's right to say that he's stayed exactly how he was when I met him. More pathetically, I miss what I was. To punish him for not writing letters and cards back to me, I stopped my little notes to him, and occupy myself by writing to friends and family instead. I don't think he noticed, but I've always felt disappointed with myself for not being big-hearted enough to continue without demanding reciprocity. Because much of my bitterness is directed towards him, the cause of my singlehood, I no longer enjoy spending time with him. The effort it takes for me to not bring up the subject of marriage when we speak leaves me with little inclination to talk about anything else. I don't want to go to his house, not even to see my beloved Toby. Talking to his family requires me to employ all the patience and tact I possess, because I resent the fact that they do not pressure him into marrying me, as though they think I'm happy to hang around for the next 7 years without any obligation on their son's part. For fuck's sake, even whores are paid.

The relationship hasn't crumbled, it's just decayed beyond recognition. Or maybe it's just me, who have morphed into a bitch so embittered that I'm poisoning everything around me. All past is fiction, most of all the part of me who used to be happy loving him. I haven't been this desperately unhappy in a long time.