reflection on aspen

I had a dream last night where, even though i don’t remember how we got there, me and Aspen (let’s name him that) were sitting on some bed. we were reunited for some reason and even though we were still going to be seperated, i hugged him suddenly and tightly and said that i missed him, to which he said, “you did?” The thing about this dream snippet is that I actually felt the relief emotionally, even though it was a dream, when I hugged him and could admit that I missed him. I actually felt it, I didn’t just witness me being relieved in the dream. When I woke up, though, I instantly returned to certainly not feeling any feelings of missing him or wanting him near.

while i learnt something from this, like the realisation that he probably never thought i did care and a lot of his venom was defensive- i also have to remember what’s definitely not true: that he would ever have let me hug him so emotionally like that in the first place. i need to remember that the last time i saw him it was in a hotel room doing coke after swallowing my pride to see him after what he said to me, and the image of putting myself down so low makes me feel sick and disgusted with myself.

 

if i’m being honest, i don’t think it was that i ever wanted him. i think i just couldn’t bear the thought of this guy who made me so angry, who wasn’t even that great, not liking me. and thus our hate-fuck situation-ship occurred.

it’s so hard to even begin to dissect all the feelings and events that happened with Aspen and it’s such a blur, but I try to, if not to know myself better and hold myself more accountable. I want to know if maybe I really am in the wrong in places that were right, i want to know how i let myself be taken advantage of/manipulated and how i let a man push me that far, and mostly trying to figure out what Aspen was thinking drives me crazy. Was he really that oblivious, did he really just have no fucking idea and not know better? was he really just so much of a narcissist he truly couldn’t see or understand beyond himself? Or was he a great manipulator nd gas-lighter? and even to this day, after the gaslighting, i wonder, maybe i really am the crazy one?

but i do have complicated emotions around him. my problem is i love people even if they’re awful, and i don’t know why. but i don’t know how i ever felt about him.

the key to figuring this all out might be in the backstory honestly. This all sounds ridiculously like a highschool drama, something i don’t tend to be involved in, but me and a couple of people all seem to run into each other often. me and aspen were never in a full official relationship. we had a “situationship” that was only about 8 months long. last august, you see, i ended my 2 year relationship with, let’s call him Marigold. Pretty soon after, Aspen messaged me. I pretty quickly realised he was the last guy who dated Magnolia. and, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t minorly curious just because I wanted to see what kind of guy he must be if *she* dated him. I wasn’t emotionally available for a relationship yet but that’s what he was explicitly looking for. after a few months of healing later i got involved with him physically. he kind if felt like my bridge after my breakup until we actually did get close and things got messy. he never felt on par to a partner to me, but i really did care deeply about the reltionship, even if it was a little more thana  friendship.

Backstory, Magnolia was a girl I went to grade 12 with. I went to highschool in ottawa before moving to this little town for some stability after my traumatic past where my aunt and uncle and grandparents lived. I was still dating my boyfriend back in ottawa, and i felt like i hated this city back then, and was pretty bitter that i had had to move here. but i grew close yet still pretty detached to this group of friends. i had a hard time connecting with pretty much anyone back then really. a portion of our bad friendship really was my fault as i was so icy. but she still also wasn’t a great friend to me either. and after we graduated and went to university, we hung out once and then never again. i was hurt by how she always brushed me off or only seemed to want to speak to me when I had something she wanted. and i have to admit there was a degree of jealousy.

This is where i did something wrong. that fall, Magnolia had broken up with her boyfriend. I had decided by that point that I didn’t like Magnolia, was a little jealous of her, and she wasn’t ever really a friend to me, anyways. so i started hooking up with her ex boyfriend. this ex boyfriend- we’ll call him Olive, ended up being significant in my life too, but that’s interconnected elsewhere and not related. Magnolia didn’t find out until that spring as we kept it on the down low.

I recieved a text message from her telling me about how fucked I was, and nothing else. about a year later i sent her a message apologising for it not being cool, but also calling her out and saying i had bpd that i let get out of control at the time. she answered that she understood and had bpd too and said we should get coffee, which we never did. we went back to ignoring each other. Every time she saw me, like on campus, she threw a fit and would walk the other way. Me and Olive later found out she told a bunch of people, mutual friends and people we hadn’t met yet, that we cheated on her, which was just not true, but now there’s a bunch of people who hate us for something that didn’t even happen.

so anyways, Aspen had ALSO dated magnolia for about a year, and I have to admit again I was curious about who this guy that this girl who i dislike but also sort of respect is.

 

Now back to the main point, my relationship with Aspen was a terror. I actually realised how good my ex Marigold was to me because of how Aspen treated me in comparison. We were constantly try to prove how little we cared about each other. sometimes we’d have rare moments where we’d open up and be really warm with each other and feel close, but they’d disappear pretty quickly. When my cousin committed suicide this year and I texted and told him, all he could say was “sorry about that, are you still coming over?” word for word. He only seemed to want me out of convenience. we were exclusive, then non exclusive, then exclusive nd non exclusive again. i finally got the strength about halfway through to end it with him when he convinced me to come over nd stay as friends with a physical relationship. this was bad because we quickly slipped bck up into being more than friends, but then pulling the “well we’re not even dating” card whenever it was convenient. I will admit I was really bad and toxic in that relationship too, but everything I did was to feel equal or on par with him every time he hurt me. I was so scared of losing power in the situation after my ex, so anytime he did anything, id do something back and i’d reserve how i felt about him so that i could have control in the situation. He also self admittedly didn’t understand or have empathy. I think he truly didn’t actually care or give a fuck about me, and just wanted the prettiest thing he could get in his bed at night. One time he cried and begged for me not to leave him, but again, I don’t think he really cared about me or my well being, just possessing me. He was always on me about what i eat or my weight. i genuinely do not think this man understands how to communicate or care for another individual, they’re all just roles he needs filled in his life. In the end he severely disappointed me and I served it to him pretty badly. I could go on and on and on about how angry i am and how pathetic i think he is actually, but theres no point. I tried so hard to “fix” him, to at least be able to hold a proper friendship. but he’s empty and at the end of the day he’s going to have to live with himself and i’m glad i made it out.

i don’t know if i really felt romantically about him because it certainly wasn’t the feeling i had for my exes, but i did care about him. i wanted him to be better, i wanted him to be happier, have better relationship with others, and i appreciated his company and the things we commonly understood that i can’t find understanding with in others. I think I could have loved him romantically by choice but i never felt safe enough in the relationship to develop that. he was always so god damn mean to me and i was always spitting venom back.

he would do things that were so blatantly cold and then suggest i was the crazy and sensitive one. he expected all the possesivenes and privilidges of being in a relationship but none of the responsability of it. and he was so hot and cold hot and cold. he’s be mad at me that i didn’t text him enough, or wasn’t physical enough, etc etc etc but then when i did text him or grab him he’d say i was too clingy.

at the end of us seeing eachother, we very blatantly and openly disliked each other. we had a very physical relationship. it was pretty much the literal equivalent of a hate fuck.

anyways, part of the venom between us is i think we also constantly had our guards and defense mechanisms up around each other. i can’t decide if he’s truly a narcissist or if he’s gentle and good at the core and just has an awful time expressing himself, but I know one time he told me that i seemed to think i was superior and only loved myself, which i instantly recognised as my defense mechanism against him. but i think we constantly did think we disliked each other more than we did.

 

but the part in my dream where he was surprised that i said i missed him- i can completely see that as being true. I’m sure he really does think I don’t miss him at all and I’m just a cold bitch. The part that was inaccurate was the hug part though, and I have to remember that- because Aspen would have never let me hug him like that, so genuinely, emotionally, openly and honestly in reality, in the first place.

 

 

When I reflect on it all, i also remember how we were very incompatible logically, and how i liked him and still stuck around and obsess as i tend to do with interests. and so i have to ask myself, did i really like him? or in my cnstant jumping from relationship to the next- did my relief of finding another just make me think that i liked him? have i ever truly loved in my past relationships or were they just obsession?