Remembering pain and growth

I started teaching in 1983, at the age of 21. Having specialised in Junior Primary, my first class was a Sub A (now called Grade 1) class. In my class that year was a little boy who was much younger than his brothers. I’d see the brothers occasionally when they dropped him or fetched him. One day the little boy invited me to a party at his house, on behalf of one of his brothers. By then I’d met the parents, so I knew the family. I went to the party, connected with one of the brother’s friends, and ended up dating him – my first serious boyfriend. It was only much later that I discovered the brother had been interested in me, and only fifteen months later that I realised I’d been dating what today is called a “player” – and this only when it became clear that he was cheating on me. We were young, and I suppose people do stupid things like that when they’re young. Anyway, at the time I was devastated. 

   

Another memory that resurfaced recently was of another relationship, basically my second serious relationship, which occupied a total of eight years of my life. This time it was with a much older man, and it was tempestuous, fraught with all the angst and self-doubt that go with the power imbalance inherent in a big-age-gap relationship. It was characterised by the yoyo pattern of manipulation, suspicion, terrible arguments and the flipside, lavish gifts with tearful and apologetic promises, and my response, every time - increasingly diluted forgiveness. (I didn’t even know that such a thing as emotional abuse existed, but that’s what it was, and that’s how that individual made his way through life, wreaking havoc in the lives and on the psyches of people close to him.) This relationship included two engagements and a three-year split.

At that time, I had a dream guitar, a solid-body, nylon-string, acoustic-electric guitar. I think it was a Yamaha. I earmarked my annual bonus for this purchase, but he convinced me to buy something else I wanted, and insisted on buying the guitar for me.

Less than a week after getting the guitar, we had another awful argument, and I decided I’d finally had enough. I said I wanted out, because I couldn’t stand living that way. As he was leaving, he asked for the ring, which I remember throwing at him. He then asked for ‘his’ guitar. I was completely shocked! I couldn’t believe that something I’d wanted so badly, that was supposedly given with so much ‘love’, could be part of such ugliness. I think it was the first time I’d personally encountered that extent of manipulation. (Sadly, not the last.) What I do remember is that feeling of absolute betrayal, and of a solid door closing a chapter of my life for good. There would be no further reconciliation ever again. I pushed the guitar towards him with so much force, that he fell back against the glass door, and in that moment I thought, Oh fuck, what if the glass breaks? 

It didn’t. And neither did I.

Sometimes the things we think will break us are actually the very experiences that remind us who we are, and give us the strength to carry on.  

But the learning process seems to be endless. In more recent years, I had an eight-and-a-half-year relationship with someone. Not without its flaws, it was definitely a life-altering experience for me, and one I don’t regret, despite its acrimonious end. I’d been growing increasingly restless in the relationship, as it was apparent that it was lop-sided, with my wanting it to move towards more permanence, and his preferring the noncommittal, see-you-when-I-see-you style we had slipped into. I said I needed a break, and, seven weeks into the break (during which we had gone out a few times), I was informed that he had started seeing someone else. I’m probably really naïve, because I was once again shocked and deeply disappointed! How could someone you’d spent almost a decade with just start a new relationship and not tell you?! How immature! I am an adult, and a strong woman – I would not have fallen apart! He, of all people, should have known that about me. 

It occurred to me that the only other time I’d experienced that particular type of betrayal was with Mr Player, 27 years earlier! I realised that I’d actually been shielded from that kind of pain for 27 years. 

But it didn’t make it any easier.

What it did provide, despite the heartache, was – FINALLY - a conclusion to yet another relationship where I had not actually honoured myself, a complex relationship I had struggled to extricate myself from. (What was a real eye-opener was how many people told me, after the break-up, that they’d always wondered what the hell I was doing, wasting my time with someone like him!)

And now, almost five years later, I sincerely believe that I definitely make healthier choices and decisions. I know myself much better, and I honour myself, in all my relationships, both personal and professional, and both platonic and romantic.  

Maybe this is what it means to be an adult. Who knows, hey? I’m still trying to figure it out.