Exodus, meditation, and forgiveness

I spent the next four days over at Scott’s place, fending off Bender at night while I slept and trying to think over everything that had happened. My first day there, Scott headed off to work and I drove myself to Chipotle. My stomach was upset from all stress and I didn’t really feel like eating, but at the same time I figured that something solid on my stomach might be good for me. Forgoing my usual vegetarian burrito bowl, I got the steak fajitas. It was good, but I couldn’t finish the whole thing.

Out at target, I looked for a couple of Blue Rays for Scott to thank him for letting me stay over, both now and during the summer when my apartment caught fire. They didn’t have 5th Element, though, so I drove over to Best Buy and picked it up there. I also ended up snagging Highlander and Gattica for him because they were super cheap.

When I returned home to the apartment, a surprise was waiting for me on my computer. I logged on and started playing Minecraft because it’s so relaxing and was excited to see there’s a new update. There was more, though. When I checked my Facebook, I had a long message from Emily. She was apologizing for everything that happened and said that she didn’t plan to see Dan ever again. She felt lied to, confused, and misled. One part of it said: “I don’t know how I ended up not trusting you when you are really such a trustworthy, wonderful person whose intentions are so pure.” Another: “As we were breaking up I could see it and I guess I didn’t really know what to do but Dan seemed to make himself available to talk to about it. But I’m stupid and I should have seen what was actually happening.”

I wasn’t sure what to think of it, but it did make me feel a lot better. Still, was I feeling better because my jealousy had won out, because I’d have a sort of revenge on Dan, because it validated my anger, or because I really did care about her? Probably some crazy mix of all of those feelings. At least, when I got in the shower that evening it occurred to me that I would actually be able to forgive Dan. Now that my head had cleared, I knew that it would be stupid to hold onto my anger, though I’d probably never trust him again.

I wrote Emily back a little later, thanking her for the message and asking if she wanted to talk about things, then hung out and played Minecraft until Scott came home and we watched a couple of movies: “A Separation” and “The Flowers of War.” Flowers was a bad choice to watch when I was depressed, but “A Separation” was really good.

The next morning, Emily and I talked on facebook and we agreed to get some food and talk about everything. Outside of a day or two at work, we hadn’t seen each other since October, so it felt like a pretty long reunion in the making. We had Noodles and Company and chit chatted for a while, avoiding the subject of what happened until we finished eating. Finally, it came up. She felt awful, evil, dirty. I felt betrayed by my roommate and best friend. We were both confused and angry.

We hugged and went back to her house. I wasn’t sure where things would leave off after that. The next day, Scott and I went to see ‘My Week With Marilyn’ at the Charles and I invited Emily, but she couldn’t come. I felt uncertain about everything, but relieved, at least, that she didn’t hate me and wasn’t trying to date Dan anymore. There’s was no telling where things would go from there, if I’d want to keep living with Dan anymore, or if I’d just prefer to forget about him, if she would keep working at the Science Center and they’d get to hang out and work things out, or if she really was going to ignore him, but I did finally feel more at peace.