Regrets and Regression

*this entry will not make a lot of sense unless you know the tale*
*or have lived a similar one yourself*

I was a board member.

I knew damn well that I should have spoken up sooner.

The problem with having a sociopath for a friend is that, however twisted his facts may be, there ARE truths within them.

It's true that when we worked together, I bit my tongue a few times toward the end. He was so PASSIONATE about everything...the kind of passionate where you don't want to get in the way or you might get run over. You just listen. You rationalize. You tell yourself the parts that make sense. And you try to ignore the parts that don't, treat it like a handicap for a brilliant mind or something.

I shouldn't call him a sociopath. That's not fair. It might be true, but it's not my call to make. That alone could be the reason I feel sick inside. What a name caller.

Sometimes I wonder if not being able to reach him in the critical days was his way of setting me up to fail him. Or maybe it was my way. My fault, just as he says it. My "hurtful" words. I know I said some- many. I've gone back and read them. Maybe it was me.

I hardly care. But the guilt will drive you mad. Some days I wake up from a nightmare and all I want to do is stand in a confessional with every person I've ever hurt, no matter in what aspect, and pleaded for their forgiveness, and apologized, over and over and over. I could have stopped the topple. I could have saved the Center. I didn't. I sat back and watched it all melt down, watched its director melt down. I resigned. I walked away, just like I have in the past. I have never once gone "down with the ship". When the Corps leader asked me to die, I said no and I left. When the director of the Center told me to deal with it or resign, I quit that too. I'm a coward. I would believe that.

And then I read that one email I saved from the rubble. The one I put in a box away from the pissing match that said, "You've been very courageous and professional." Held onto it for dear life. From a stranger who barely knew me, those words meant more to me then and now than a thousand "I love you"s from a man who couldn't be further removed from their meaning.

What's amazing to me is that I don't miss him. Somehow, in my mind, I've learned that "him", the person, never existed. But I miss the validation. And the closeness. And the realism. I never thought you could fake those things. But you can. And lots do.

And well...I have become comfortably numb, I suppose. But you miss the human piece of it all, and it hurts sometimes.
And there's the guilt.
Because the only actions you can be responsible for are your own.
I get mad when people don't assume their responsibilities.
I'm sorry.

For whatever it's worth, for whoever you are, were, or will be, I'm sorry.
I'd give anything to have the superpower of the inability to hurt someone.
Because I understand what it's like to hurt for something. And real or imagined, everyone...EVERYONE...understands pain.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad