The Break Away

I’m not conspiracy theorist. I mean, really, I’m not. But when people do things out of the norm, I wonder, “Now why’d s/he do THAT?” And I spent the better part of ten minutes wondering this the other day.

You’ll need some background story. And I’ll keep this very general since I know people who knowme-knowme read this. For those who read the old site, remember FL?? This is sorta FL related. And when I think FL, I think co-dependence. But not just with him. Let me ’splain.

One night, I was out with friends. I didn’t drive but I was ready to go home. I called someone to come get me. Me and this cat, we’d known eachother since I had ‘teen’ in my age. I’d known him through the latter part of undergrad, grad, and life up until that point. We were never really out of touch. As he’d done time and time before, he came and got me. Our relationship wasn’t a sexual one at that point. I’d treated his home like my very own bed and breakfast, always sleeping in the guest room.

Have you ever been entangled with someone?? I’m sure you all say YES. Anyway, you ever had a person on the edge of your life? Like, not really in but not really out? They have you locked in this cycle of needing you. It’s like they set you up so that you even start to believe that this person can not exist without help from you. Oh it’s deep.

You go on with your life but every other minute this person has some emergency where only you can help. Nevermind the host of friends and family flanking him. YOU are the only one who can help. And in return, you end up depending on him to do things for you too. Just little things. But not because you want to but because he makes himself completely available to you no matter the time of day or night or his romantic situation.

We get to his house and go in. As I’m walking through his house, I pass his coffee table. Thrown on it are catalogs from some of the more expensive furniture stores around. He was furnishing another home he’d purchased in another state.

And life is this way for a while. So long that you don’t even remember a time when this person wasn’t a phone call away. Hell even your mother starts asking, “Oh why don’t you ask _____ to help you? Doesn’t he usually do that for you?”

As I continued to make my way to the guest room, I caught a glimpse of his office. The light was on and I saw on his desk, stacks of cash. So much cash. I immediately thought of my own safety because normal people do not keep that kind of cash laying around their house. But then, normal people don’t have homes in the hood monitored by security cameras do they?

But you get older. You have more experiences with people who don’t use dependence as a way to maintain contact. Then he realizes you have backed away. Not just backed away, but gone. Much to his surprise. Because maybe he thought things would go on as they’d been forever. You’d always be locked in a matramony of codependence. He’s stunned. He sits and ponders. How could this have happened? He had you. He’d worked so hard to intertwine your lives so that you needed him to need you. As he’s wondering, you’re examining the situation more. You chalk it up to experience. Time passes.

He shushed me like he’d done so many times before when I was younger. Told me to go on upstairs and go to bed. I refused. He offered me some cash to go to sleep. I refused. He offered me money for a cab out to Maryland. I refused. Told him he was taking me home. And he did. We never spoke since that night. I thought I saw him on the street once, but I wasn’t sure. He looked familiar. All those years of him being braided into my world and I don’t even remember what he looks like.

Then he makes his move. One calculated, out of the blue attempt to re-establish a connection. Even if it’s not the one as strong as it had been, but it’s a connection. He thinks he needs that connection because that keeps things the way they were. And in his passive-aggressive mind, any connection is better than none. In his mind, a slight reaching out is worth it if it could pull you back in.

I believe a certain level of interdependence is good. But I don’t think it’s healthy when one person uses it to manipulate another. Depending on people certainly isn’t a sign of weakness, IMO. But everything has it’s limits, personal limits.