Sometimes, it's harder to be the one who says goodbye...

Lucky Bastard is gone.

Actually, it was pretty easy.

He hadn't been around for awhile--something about job and home difficulties. Something about needing money or something to that effect that was keeping him from coming out to visit.

And I just got tired of the whining.

Yes, I understand he's got difficulties right now--but for a man with two homes, several luxury vehicles, and many other trinkets of the "good life," he's got a hell of a lot of nerve complaining to me about his problems.

I live in a tiny apartment, drive a 10 year old rattletrap of a car, and don't have much else--yet I'm supposed to have sympathy for his plight, his inability to maintain his lifestyle...

Which, honestly, I don't.

I told him I deserved better. He said "I don't have time for this right now."

I said Fuck you. and haven't called him back.

Don't intend to....

Will I miss him? Sure, in some way. I'll miss those beautiful blue eyes, and that smile, and the great sex (like sex I've never had before.) But I don't miss the whining of a man who has far more than me and often acts like he has far less.

I just hit the point of being sick of the phoniness. After 4 years, being phony wasn't important to me. Maybe it was to him. I, however, don't need a phony.

Yet this raises a dilemma when it comes to Steady Eddie. Lucky Bastard was like the antidote to Steady Eddie. He kept things lively where Steady Eddie just keeps them...well...steady. Steady Eddie knows me better than Lucky Bastard ever will--yet, we have very little in common.

Over the past few months I've come back to the things that are me: art and dancing and pop culture and needlework. Steady Eddie doesn't have the same sense of humor, doesn't like to be all that social--and I thrive on social stuff--enjoys when I take him to art museums, but knows little about it so we can't really discuss it. His preference is to work around the house or on other things, and go for hikes. He prefers solitary activities, where I prefer social activities.

And there's no physical relationship. (that's why Lucky Bastard was there for so long anyway...)

We are, fundamentally, incompatible--yet we care deeply for one another, and we know each other better than anyone else has ever known us. We've been thru difficult things together, supported each other, listened to each other. We worry about each other and try to help one another.

Yet he is one of those Solitary Men--happy in their own space, not looking for more--although he wouldn't mind sharing a space with me, he doesn't feel he needs or wants to share a lot of life stuff that happens to be very important to me.

And I've been around him long enough to know that no matter what I say, do, beg, or plead, he isn't going to change.

You see, I want more. I want a home and wouldn't mind if there were children around (I'm somehow regretting not having a child--but things were never right and I was always very afraid.) I want a social circle and parties and people coming over.

I'm very companionate and like to have someone with me to do things. He's not, and doesn't care to be. If he wants to do something, he does it. He might think of asking me, but it's never a priority. For me, I always ask--and often times he doesn't want to do things because it involves being social with others. Which he just doesn't like.

I want so much more than what I have now--yet there's a part of me that is beating the bejesus out of myself because I'm not perfect. If I'm not perfect--perfectly thin, perfectly financially secure, perfectly without a problem in the world--then I can't have a real, full relationship....

I have to settle for half-relationships...

In some ways, I see what I've done with my life as being similar to lots of men I've known who are "entreprenurial types"--the not-too-successful entrepreneurial types, who usually rely on their wives or girlfriends to help them. So, I'm certainly not alone in what I'm doing--I'm just not a guy doing it.

Which, I think, to some people, is highly disconcerting. Esp., I think, to some men...

But I really don't know.

The only thing I know is that Steady Eddie--while a loving man, who knows me more than anybody--has nothing in common with me, and I can't see staying with him....

yet how do I say "goodbye"? how does this happen when you care for someone yet know you can't ever live with him? how does this kind of relationship get negotiated?

And will I ever end up meeting anyone who will build a life with me like the life I want? or are those days over? Am I too old for that now?

So may days I wake up frightened. I have so much fear that I'm paralyzed--I get overwhelmed by life and the things that I need to change in order to have the kind of life I want. It's too much to do alone. And that's why Steady Eddie's still there....

But how can I say goodbye to someone who's been and continues to be, my stability, my rock?

The one person who knows most of me. (there's only one part he doesn't know....that's the part that Lucky Bastard knows. Strange how it's easier to get rid of the person who knows me physically vs. the person who knows me emotionally. As they say, sex is easy. it's relationships that are hard...)

It was so much easier when I was young--relationship gets too hard, I start to freak out, and then just go back home. Find someone else. Get all full of fear again and then cut and run. Strange how I've never been able to confide in any man my fears--for a lot of reasons, including their own fears-- so none have been able to help me through them. Except Steady Eddie, who always tries and is always there.....

But isn't going to help me have the life I want. Because the life he wants is quite different....

We're just two very different people, really.

But how can I say goodbye to someone who truly loves me and not hate myself? How can I do that and realize that it's o.k., that he will be fine, that I"m not an evil person, or an ungrateful person, or some other kind of loathsome troll of a person?

I don't know what to do with all of this. Don't know how things will change. Don't even know if I can find someone who will love me just as much as Steady Eddie does (only more because he will want the physical part.)

All I know is that I'm very, very afraid right now. And when I'm this afraid, nothing can change. Yet it has to, otherwise I'll sink lower.

I have to be the one to say goodbye. But how does that happen? how do I do it and not cut my own heart out or beat myself up for the rest of my life?

I don't know any of these answers....