C-Block

I’ve been spending a lot of time – non work time, although it all gets blurred – with Derby.  I have some considerable ambivalence about this.  On the one hand, as I’ve said somewhere and maybe here, there is and has always been a natural rapport between us that is easy to fall into, to have the moment with no other knowledge outside of it.  The Architect was like that, too:  the liquid sun white washed a myriad of sins until I was reminded of them, again, the betrayal feeling fresh for the forgetting.

On the other, he passively refuses to engage in any substantive discussion about things which I regard as unresolved. He’s content to forget it, to gloss over it, to pretend it no longer matters.  I still feel unacknowledged and sometimes irritated, sometimes hurt.

And, it’s a kind of jam-up for me, in other ways, because normally I would occasionally send out some emo missive, as a way to move the thoughts through, if someone wouldn’t talk to me.  But, in his case, I can’t do that in the measures that would be useful, because we both have to deal with each other the next day at work.  So, as long as we keep it on the surface, it’s light, but the depths still teem with unease.  I realize that, like with all of “them,” I’m the one that walked away.  I realize that it’s counterproductive to want to be able to walk away, yet still expect someone to chase me down the street.  I know it, but it doesn’t change how I feel, what I want.

I want him to confess, at least once, that it pains him to stand next to me, sometimes.  That there are moments he knows, or believes, he made a big mistake.  By not saying so, I assume he doesn’t.  And for that, I want to punish him by removing myself entirely – by not continuing to proffer the succor of my company, when it has such insufficient meaning to him.  If it was so trivial, so transient, then why bother continuing to reward him with the benefit of association?  Just another person wanting the value without the expense.

I did take a risk, somewhat, by sending a letter which at least articulated two of the things I couldn’t get out of my head, that still had the power to flip an anger switch just by thinking about them.  He did read it, but didn’t respond.  There’s no value in trying again; if he doesn’t think it’s valuable or worth addressing, then it can only create more friction, though for me, there’s plenty of friction as it lies.

It is interesting that the whole situation has forced me to sit in discomfort from almost beginning to end.  Ways in which I would have ordinarily relieved that tension are not available, forcing me to deal with it in other ways. I suppose this is growth of a sort, though not one I yet appreciate.  But I do appreciate him on the project, in both practical and other ways, and so.  So, I take the hit, as I often have done, while he gets the free turn.  At least, that’s how it feels today.