False Loves Evolve

I've known you, I know you still. There are certain friendships, relationships, or acquaintances that can survive through the years and still crumble in the face of an honest response. I am not sure that ours can withstand it. You come to me now, knowing that I have known you before you became the person you are now. I knew you when love was exciting and fresh. When love raced through your veins and raised your temperature like a fierce, burning addiction. You were once wild for the one you chose. Now, years later, after life has calmed the passionate storms and anchored the ship in which you started your wild adventure you ask my perception. What do I think is fair? What is owed? How do we tear apart an empire that stood as a labor of this love story? Sigh... and now it comes to this.

What payment will you take for having survived through years of what you once called unconditional? I watch people completely forget who they were when love was fresh. I watch the bitterness wash away the words that were heartfelt and spoken aloud before love became stale. Friend, I heard you proclaim that you would rather have nothing at all and live in a box with your love than live one day without this love by your side. Perhaps if you had only a box to your name, it would not be so hard to divvy up the spoils of a shipwrecked love. Rarely are the spoils achieved by one person alone. Where one may have done the manual labor, the other played an unending supporting role, at least this is common in the relationships worth having. In this case, one is not more worthy than the other.

So you come to me for an honest, unbiased opinion... At the end of a journey, I like to focus on where I have been and what I have done. I do not turn to the path behind me and take inventory of the trials or scrapes in an effort to itemize a bill. Honestly, I have never looked back to figure how much I owe for the good things either. When facing the shadows of a love that has evolved into something that is no longer for me, I do not replace the emotion with hatred, spite, or bitterness. If the only ties are material, I would split fairly but honestly, tho I have been known to take off with only a handful of my most important treasures. If a fair agreement is not an option, I would not bind my peace or sanity to anything as meaningless as materials. When the union produces children, as they have for many of us, my views are often harder to digest.

At some point, this person was meaningful enough to create life with. When the child arrived, there were no talks of the total costs to maintain it or the shifts and responsibilities that were expected of each parent.
A long time ago, we had a great conversation with a group of friends. It stemmed from one simple question... had your father been a poor man, had he not had the ability to provide for you at all but was not malicious, if all he had to offer you were tales of his life would you still want to have known him? I don't recall a single no. Just to know him was enough, yet a few that were single mothers had made the opposite decision for their own children. The decisions so many make concerning the children carry such huge consequences. How did they go from wanting nothing but love to renting the children? How did the infinite value of time with a parent (of coarse, this is assuming there are no security risks or safety issues in other cases) come to a tangible amount? Why, after years, do some need the assistance of a cold, unfeeling court to make decisions for you?

To be honest, I don't believe that you have the strength for the conversation you want to have with me. I don't say this because I intend to judge you, we each have our lives and our own mistakes and achievements to make in them, but because I will tell you what the consequences of the choices you make can be. You are a gracious, kind person. How much of you are you willing to give up in order to cash out of what once was a beautiful love story. All stories end after all.

Friendship and support are always here for you. I would be lying if I told you that I knew what the right thing to do was since that tends to change for each of us. All I can tell you is what I would do and why, it is not at all an implication that it is the only choice out there. For me it is simple. I hope to grow into an old woman with stories to tell and they will include endings. I hope to enjoy sharing them.