Can't Stand the Rain......

I guess you guys seem to get an update only in bad times but, better an update at this time than no update at all right?

 

Well I don’t want to go into details because I feel like the story has been told before so I don’t want to repeat myself or my argument. But I will give a synopsis of what has occurred.

 

A week and half ago, my boy and me had another argument, not to belittle it but, its happened before and obviously things haven’t been as easy to fix as we would have liked it to have been.

 

The time factor has been having its toll on our relationship and we were really beginning to see the impact as the level of motivation in our relationship was dwindling. When we came to this conclusion, we decided to make a conscious effort to make communication a bit more consistent. Since this seemed to be the source of our distance mentally. In my opinion, things were getting better (over a period of months). I may not always say it but I do think his communication habits were getting better over time and I was a getting gradually happier. I would like to say I have been getting better at being more patient (at least in my opinion) and more understanding of his situation. While things weren’t completely perfect, we weren’t at each others throats and at least in my opinion there was more good than bad.

 

So last week happens, I don’t hear anything from him, for two days and I decide to call. Now it is very difficult for me to remain calm when I don’t here from him. Particularly, if I have made an attempt to contact him, (which I did), I tend to get agitated and sound rude over the phone. This usually steams from frustration that he made no attempt to contact me (no text, no missed call). Regardless of the circumstances, my attitude was also exacerbated because I left him voicemail, explaining that I had finally gone permanent at my job (6 moths in the making) and I was so excited at the time that I called in him in the middle of the day from work. I didn’t care that he didn’t answer because he was in class. I don’t even care that he never listened to the voicemail as I found out later on.

 

So I remained patient and waited. I waited for 2 days and then decided to call. So he answers the phone, and it is clear that I am not pleased with the situation. Now I will admit that I had trouble keeping my complete composure (that’s my part of the problem), and he could clearly hear the anger in my voice. Now, there are two things you can do when one person in a relationship is angry. You can also get mad and cause a fight or you can choose to be the calm one and work on the issue and explain your side of the situation.

 

Now in the beginning he tried to explain that he had fallen asleep after the gym the night before. Now I didn’t show any sympathy towards this because we had decided that he would call before he went to the gym since once he gets back, I’m in bed because I have work the next morning. Usually once he does that I don’t have any issues because he at least attempted and sometimes that all that matters and I know time is tight for both of us. He then proceeds to tell me that the next day he had an early shift at work and once he got off of work he went to pick up his best friend and they chilled at his place where they cooked and relaxed for a while. So midnight roles around, no attempt from him to contact me. I always go to sleep at midnight so I decided to call him to see why he didn’t call or text before then.

 

So, basically he gets frustrated after he explains what happened and I don’t seem completely pleased. It’s not that I was not sympathetic to what he was going through but I feel as though he should have simply apologized and tried to do things differently next time. Instead he decided to hang up the phone on me. Well to make this long story shorter, we ended up not talking for a week and a half which made the situation worse. I decided to basically ignore it. He didn’t call or text and I didn’t feel like I was obliged to because he hung up on me.

 

Jumping a week and a half into the future, I read his blog, as I was getting ready to write a break up letter. It turns out he had dropped off his key for my apartment the day before and I didn’t realize it with the growing mold of clothing and paper that is growing on everything in my bedroom. To tell you the truth, I didn’t communicate with him, not because I was being pride full of petty , but because I felt like he disrespected me and I needed to think about respecting myself first in that situation. So on his blog, he explained that he was not happy with the fact that I did not apologize to him.

 

Now I have no problem with apologizing if I did something wrong and it is my understanding that there was something I did wrong according to him. So for that I am sorry. But I feel as though two sides exist to this argument and it is time for us to do what we should have done that night, which was talk about it and learn how to deal with the situation better. Below is our correspondence that will explain our situations better than I can at this time.

 

From Me:

 

 

On Nov 1, 2008, at 12:06 PM, Special K wrote:

 

 

Maybe I should have written this earlier.

 

I just read your blog entry..the funny thing is I haven't been on there in months but the day I decide to go on...it just so happens that you decide to return from your hiatus. First off, I'll like to say this, although alot of anger is being held in my heart because I have chosen not to talk about this with my anyone (including best friends, not even Karim knows). I will try my best not to let it out in this.

 

First off, I didn't call because you hung up on me, you disrespected me when I did not disrespect you, you also hung up after I allowed you to say your piece; when I started talking about my side of things, after I allowed you to say yours. Put yourself in my situation, I'm 22 years old and I'm being hung up on (also in front of Britney) by someone who is suppose to be my equal. I am just as much a man as you are and I've never hung up on you (even when I'm mad I listen to what you have to say whether I agree at the time or not). Its obvious that both of us think that we are write in this situation, that one of us owes the other an apology. Believe it or not its more than "sorry Ian( or sorry Jimil)" for me. It's understanidng that you disrespected me (or I disrepected you) and you did not treat me as your equal. For whatever I am wrong for I don't exactly understand, (and that's not pride) so at this time I can not apologise becuase of lack of understanding. I'm not saying that I am not wrong, I just don't understand what I did wrong in this situation (how can I apologise when you spoke to me like a child an hung up on me?). I will say one thing though...its a quote I found online that expresses how I feel.

 

"If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you."

 

This is how I feel, this goes for any friendship or relationship. I will respect myself before anyone/anything else. That translates into, if I  am disrespected I will not continue to encourage disrespect by not showing that person that I will not accept that. If I acted like everything was fine it would have been saying that "this is the best way to deal with issues" and that it is acceptable to treat other like subordinate/children when mad.  My thoughts are not based on pride, its not childish and its not selfish.

 

In the end, I feel this way, circumstances are difficult for you (period) but it doesn't give u the right to ignore me, if you had swallowed your pride and called me back before things got dragged out, our differences would have ended there that night. I know your life and I am mindful of it, sometimes it would not hurt to take serious interest in mine. To ignore me and expect me to demean myself by crawling back to you to apologize for something which I still can't figure out is reprehensible.

 

 

Maybe in the future I will see my wrong in this (and I'm willing to) but you need to see yours as well.

 

- Me

 

His Response:

 

Its funny, because its almost as if you're blaming this on me when clearly you called me with your attitude and spoke to me like i was your child. Lets agree on one thing before i continue to go about my day and you with yours: had you approached me differently, things would have ended up differently. For one, your attitude continued after I spoke my peace. Secondly after I spoke it was in vain because clearly you wasn't listening to my explanation, and my justification for hanging up (when i clearly said in my entry was  my wrong doing) is that you was expecting an apology of sorts and i wasn't offering one because You still at  that point of time had not thought to even think of what my situation was. I have never spoke to you like you was a child, and not nearly the way you've spoke with me. There was only so many way i could say the same things in which you were not listening to anyway. There is only so many things i am willing to take on as "my" fault and sorry, you attitude is definitely not my issue. I'm not to blame this time.

 

- J

 

 

So citing the fact that we were both wrong and I was ready to talk about things, I sent him a message on aim last night. I told him that I was ready to talk about things if he though it would help. This was last night. I didn’t get a response last night so I figured he was either logged in from his phone or not at the computer. I also didn’t get response this morning even though I purposely left the computer on last night just encase he got the message late. Well I woke up this morning and there was no response. I am not particularly worried but it’s not like him not the respond and he is usually OK with talking about things. But that non response triggered something inside of me this morning. Something I was not expecting.

 

As I put on my pants this morning to head to work like any other day, my eyes started to well up and the rain just began to pour uncontrollably. The love that I have for him took over and I just began to cry. It think it was the realization that I may be losing him and as much as I would like to ignore it, it will not let me. With my permission or not, it will come, the rain that is. Almost a year and a half is not going to just let me go away. I don’t understand what happened this morning but it came from what I have no control over and it also proved that it will hit when and where it wants. Whether I say today or tomorrow that I don’t care about the situation or  I don’t love him I know it will never be true and I will not to be able to ignore my feeling about this. So, may it’s a sign that the grieving has begun.

 

- Growing Up Special K