Getting emotionally invested

Sucks. You see, when good stuff happens between us two, it's the best. I'd go as far as to say sanctuary. Our stolen nights of talking, our ability to form such a fast bond, our wanting to forgive and learn about the other.

But when bad things happen, man, does it redefine the words "shit storm."

Last Friday afternoon

I had a few things on my mind and was in a quiet and contemplative mood, so I pulled out a piece of paper and started pouring my thoughts out.

A friend of mine called James came down and sat next to me, and asked if this was my personal daily diary of some sort.

"No," I told him, "I have an actual diary I write in at night. I just have...a lot of thoughts going on right now."

Usually James and I are pretty talkative, but we were both in a contemplative mood on Friday. He listened to his music, I wrote.

---

Basically what happened was that Hannah decided to completely fall for a boy who didn't reciprocate her feelings but was still a lovely boy and made time for her and made her feel very special and nice.

I got a little possessive if you could say so. It's not very often a boy gives me such nice attention, and makes me feel special and everything. Not only that, but he himself was a bit of a vulnerable character-quiet, shy, a little awkward at times. A little bit of a sensitive soul who people were a complete asshole to. So I guess a little bit of a "big momma bear" mentality kicked in as well.

The problem was that I became too emotionally invested and reliant on him. Small misinterpreted actions and words made me sad, but I would not tell him. Sometimes one of us would screw up, have our actions or words taken completely out of context, and we'd be either very sad or very mad. (Usually I was mad and he was sad.)

Ultimately it became too toxic for both of us. Whilst most of the time we provided a lovely friendship for each other, we were both getting too hurt from each other when we did argue.

Him with his unintentional and clueless words. He didn't know the power his words held over me. Sometimes they could dampen a whole day for me. They could brighten up a bad day, and make a good day bad.

He wouldn't know that his harmless joke could make me lie on my bed and silently cry, leaving me with puffy eyelids the next morning.

He similarly didn't know that sometimes, when my family was arguing and my house was falling apart outside my door, conversations with him grounded me and stopped me from running to my grandmas house.

I wasn't much better. I overreacted and mad him feel like shit for something he had no idea would hurt me so much. It had to stop.

---

I might look back at this event when it's all over and laugh at it. I might not completely get over it. I don't know. All I know is that it's been emotionally taxing for the last few months and I had to do something about it before it completely consumed me.

I was in a constant cycle of denial and acceptance about the whole... issue. Sometimes I would think I was doing the right thing for myself and adopting the right attitude to it. Sometimes I wouldn't.

Subconsciously, I have been doing what I am doing now about my issue for a few months now-decreasing emotional investment, getting over the whole thing. But was I consciously aware of that?

No. I was having a battle with myself about the whole issue; whether my actions and ultimately the path I put myself on was the right thing to do.

And then on Friday, whilst writing everything out on the train, my subconscious and conscious thoughts... lined up I guess. A solution to everything came up.

Cut emotional ties with him. Keeping friendship is preferred, but not necessary. I chose to try to keep the friendship.

You know, actually coming to that conclusion after months of confusion and denial and acceptance and whatnot was very satisfyingly tiring.

I leaned on James' shoulder, tired. James is pretty accommodating with me doing these things, as we do these sort of things frequently.

So he leaned his head on mine, and soon flopped an arm around me, his hand resting on my hip. It was really comforting, just knowing that there was a big friendly person called James next to me that cared for me and comforted me.

I don't know why, but I started crying. Not loud and mourning. Just a small stream of tears, coming out of my eyes, travelling across my nose, down my cheeks. I guess it was from the whole revelation, the solution to most of my emotional troubles for the last few months had finally come.

Not only that, but the overlying knowledge of how difficult it was going to be. You can't just cut off your emotional ties with someone you hold dear just like *that.* It's just not possible.

It's only been four days since Friday, and a few months since I've been subconsciously cutting off emotional ties, but my instincts were right, it's hard.

Sometimes I look back at it all and how close we used to be and I get sad. Sometimes I feel like he doesn't care for me as much as he used to, and that sucks as well.

I understand that we probably are going to distance a little bit, with my whole "emotional detachment" thing. A little voice, the small voice of the "big momma bear" reserved for him-is a little reluctant to let him go. But it's for the best of us, and I can only hope our friendship will remain good and true.

Unexpected actions

No less than three weeks ago, my ex-boyfriend came onto my afternoon train.

He stepped on and I immediately sat upright, hands on hips, crossed my legs and stared at him until he walked out of my line of sight.

I was suprised, not by his actions- we are not longer involved in each other's lives and he can go on whatever train be wants- but rather my own.

I do not want to go into too much detail about the whole situation between us two because it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but we ended our relationship on a bad note. Primarily due to his choices to breach my trust, and take the breakup to public social media.

After the breakup, I erased him out of my life, with no post-breakup feelings. In retrospect, it was because I wasn't that into him- I liked him, and spending time with him-walking home together after the train and whatnot. However, not enough to invest any emotions into our relationship-hence the lack of post-breakup feelings (eg. Sadness, anger etc.)

So my spontaneous reaction to his presence-stare him down until he was out of my line of sight-surprised me.

I think it's because alongside losing our relationship, we lost our pre-existing friendship. We'd been friends for about four years-year 5-liking each other on and off since the beginning of high school- but both of us too scared to make a move.

We didn't have a regular form of communication, like social media, for I was on none. However, on the occasional event or whatever that made him late, he would catch my train, seek me out, and we'd start talking.

His appearances would be completely random. Sometimes I wouldn't see him for half a year, other times, a few weeks.

However, every time we saw each other, no matter how long it had been, it was like just yesterday we had been talking. It was all very loose and easy going. I didn't expect or look forward to him, but it was a pleasant surprise every time I saw him. We had that sort of friendship. I have very few of those.

And I'm guessing, the way our friendship ended on a bad note when it didn't have to (should he not've taken the breakup to social media, it would've been different) left me bitter. And I never registered that bitterness until the very moment I was reminded of him.