Just Friends

I was sitting on the couch in my temporary home last night, rewatching Breaking Bad in preparation for the new season and working on the never-ending baby blanket I am knitting for my brother's first child. Tony and Colin were out of town, and it was the first night I had been alone since I moved away from my ex-husband. I looked at the clock and realized it was close to 9 pm- almost time for True Blood to start. I usually watch the show with Tony, Colin, and Shauna, but tonight I would be watching it by myself. I didn't change the channel, either because I was far too invested in meth-cooking to deal with vampires or because of a whole other reason that keeps nagging at me today: this is a show I used to watch with Gino and it makes me sad to watch it without him. This is not the first time this has come up, and each time it does, it stings.
I was driving the other day, listening to Outkast, and missing Gino next to me, dancing in his seat like a goofball. I am starting to see just how much I am going to miss him, forever, not just for now, and how much I can feel is missing from my life now that I no longer have him as a friend. I'm calling to mind a strange conversation we had months ago, when he brought up the fact that I am the only woman he could picture wanting to still be friends with after a break-up. I dismissed this as one of his idle musings, but still taking it as a twisted sort of compliment that he would still want me in his life even if I wasn't married to him. He also gave me the whole song-and-dance of "let's be friends" when we first parted ways, but I can see just how false and hollow that is. If I speak to him now, he doesn't see a friend, he sees an enemy, someone he cut out of his life for a reason, and I don't think we can ever get back to a place where I am not that person. I don't hate him yet, and he is the one who ended the marriage, but that is only because I miss him too much to hate him.
I am not sure if I have truly been dealing with the loss of his friendship because I have been so distracted by the loss my marriage. I have been sending flirty texts that lead to nowhere to prove to myself that I am still desirable and counting my friends to prove to myself that I am not unloveable. These are distractions, and while they have been working so far, but I can feel them losing their power. At first, I missed all of the couple things, the sleeping next to each other and having his hand to hold. Now, I miss all the other parts of his personality that had nothing to do with our marriage. I miss how funny he can be and I miss how he would react to things. I see something now and wish he was there to comment on it, or I make a cup of coffee and picture him doing something dumb like starting the Keurig without putting a cup underneath it.
I don't think I have fully grasped one true thing about all of this- that Gino does not miss me the way that I miss him. I have been telling myself what everyone tells someone who has been dumped- that it is impossible that he doesn't love me. Now, I am seeing that not only is it possible, but that it must be true. One of the things that is hard to admit to yourself is that sometimes, your best is just not enough because the person you are doing your best for doesn't want what you're offering. I know I was a good wife, and also a good friend to him, but in the end, it didn't matter. The night before he told me he wanted this, I came home around ten and was surprised to find him already in bed. He looked depressed, deflated, like a huge weight was pressing down on him. I sat on the bed, next to him, and I don't know why I said this, but I told him, "I know you're unhappy, but I can't do anything more to try to make you happy. I can't make myself more beautiful and I can't make myself more interesting."
I see now that what I was doing with that sentence was push him toward his final decision. I admitted to him in that statement that all my efforts were worth nothing, and that he would never be happy with me, despite the fact that I was doing my very best. It is hard to recognize that where you have failed is through being yourself, and not the person they are looking for.