The Guilt of Distance

Get in loser, we're doing Tragedy with the Girls

I had a very weird October. A lot came crashing together. I turned 30, visited the place my family is from for the first time, wound up writing more than I ever have, and had my most social week since March 2020. Plenty of ups, but many downs. Made a lot of epiphanies. But I think the biggest thing is that it feels like there’s momentum in my life again. That’s really key, considering how depressed I’ve been this year. Ironic, too, considering this is happening at the yearly nadir.

During my Most Social Week at the end of October, I got to see John Waters’ spoken word performance at Metro. And I got sucker punched! It wasn’t all bad, though — John Waters did look me in the eye and tell me we both have the same favourite John Waters film (it’s Serial Mom, for the over-eager film majors in the audience). Ok, maybe he didn’t look me right in the eye. He was so far from my upper balcony seat that I thought he had weird puffy tufts of hair coming out the sides of his head. Turns out it was just his ears. But he did say that, and you know, maybe he was looking at me. I choose to think optimistically.

While in the grey shivers that lingered outside the theatre, waiting with my lovely tall friends to get in, I was anxious. I knew I was going to see a ghost. He was going to be there. John Waters is literally the mothership calling him home. And then it happened. Pretended like we never saw each other. Like we were nothing. Like I wanted. A ghost in the wind.

One of my friends, who’s still acquainted with him, elected to divulge a recent detail regarding this ghost. He’d asked if my friend could maybe wish me a happy birthday on his behalf. From what I understand, it was never resolved as to whether or not it was a good idea, so it didn’t happen. And then it came out anyway. Right there, on 87th Ave.

Everything shattered. When we have important people that we no longer see, not because they’re no longer here, but because of how traumatic they were, it’s easy for illusions to creep in. Not that the reasons for going no contact are invalid — they are — but that in that distance, these people become abstracted, existing solely as the Reason They Are Traumatic. No nuance. And so they can easily become built up as larger-than-life villains.

But that comment broke the illusion. I remembered that he’s human and not a villain. I remembered that while he did so many fucked up things, he isn’t a bad person. I understand why he was the way he was, even if it hurt me. And we had a lot of good times, despite that. There’s your nuance.

In a year when barely anybody could be bothered to remember my birthday, he did. And, despite the years between us now, I still know him so well. Isn’t it strange when that happens? But because of that, I know he isn’t trying anything. He was being genuine. He still cares. And I hate that I care too.

It reminded me a lot of how I feel every year when my mom wishes me a “Happy Birthday” or “Merry Christmas.” I feel so guilty when she does this. It happened this year too, in the streets of Antwerp. These messages re-humanize her, as somebody who cares, who, despite her flaws, does want some kind of connection with me. I feel like I need to reach out and maybe things won’t be so bad now. I feel like I’m cruelly keeping her from a relationship with me.

That’s the thing, though. You end up kind of gaslighting yourself. Am I the bad person? Was she really that terrible that she doesn’t deserve to see her son? Because unless you are dealing with an absolute sociopath, there’s always going to be nuance. It always felt like my mom didn’t care, until she did, and then I felt bad. She was very manipulative.

I first learnt about guilt-tripping back in junior high from my childhood best friend. On MSN, because of course. I cannot recall what the exchange was, but basically, my friend called me out for it. I didn’t know what the concept meant, so I asked her, and then I realized that my maternal side of the family did this with me regularly. I was recycling the same behaviour with my friend. And I’m glad she caught it so early because I’d like to think I don’t really exhibit this tendency anymore.

Around the same time, I stopped seeing my mom and, shortly thereafter, my grandma. Because trauma. But in the period between when I stopped seeing my mom and when I stopped seeing my grandma, my grandma would constantly guilt me over the decision. She took me to my mom’s against my will under the pretext of seeing Other Grandma (my great-grandmother), who lived nearby. That was awkward. When I explained to my grandma that she was guilt-tripping me over my decision to not see my mom, she just threw her face into her arms and sobbed uncontrollably. I think these early behaviours are why I am easily coerced by guilt as an adult.

Still, you have to leave room for people to grow and change. That’s why I started seeing them again at age 21. My mom, especially, has grown a lot since I was a kid. In a way that almost makes me feel like my childhood was a hallucination and that this, how she is now, is actually how it was. But it wasn’t. Some of how she used to be erupted when we fought a few years ago and stopped seeing each other again.

And so, the more I think about her, in the state of guilt over not having a relationship, the more I remember the harm. Even as an adult. Like her pretending I didn’t exist to anybody new she met. Or, more dramatically, to my half-sisters. Because it was never the right time. No, it’s weird and is because she doesn’t want to deal with the discomfort of explaining how and why I am where I am. And the more time that passes, the weirder it gets. So she puts it off. But it’s cruel to deny your son. Justify it as a lie-by-omission all you want, but I never pretended like she never existed, despite all of the pain she caused. When I remember these details, I feel more ok again with not having a relationship with my mom.

Funnily enough, I probably could have a relationship with her again now. At 21, I was more hopeful that my mom and I could be close, like the stereotypical mother-son relationship. I don’t have those delusions anymore. I watched us have our biannual lunches for years where we’d catch up on the most surface of levels, and, in hindsight, it was fine. I clearly wanted more, but she and I are quite different, and it’s hard to relate to one another. So I was dwelling in the impossible. But I’m finally at peace with the reality of it. I can be cordial and have lunch every 6 months and be ok with it.

With him, I’m not there, though. A friend of mine told me that I’m in a dark, emotionally vulnerable place, and it can make it really easy to fall into the past, into old habits, and so on. I’ve been fighting against reaching out to him repeatedly since John Waters. Maybe things are different. Maybe he deserves a relationship with me. Maybe so. But even if he’s there, I’m not. I need to work on getting myself into a more stable, solid place. Where I’m less vulnerable.

I don’t know how realistic us being in each other’s lives actually is. Like my mom, I understand and can even bring myself to sympathize with why he is the way he is. But it doesn't change the fact that he couldn’t be what I needed him to be. The difference is, with my mom, aside from our spat 3 years ago, it’s been very stable with her, for years. With him, it was up and down till the end. And the end was only 2 years ago.

I wish so much that things were different. Even though I’m anything but fatalist, I’m worried that I’m destined to always love him. Not in a romantic or sexual way, but just in the sense of having a deep-rooted care and wanting the best for him. Despite him never being the best for me. We spent so many years so close, with a real connection. Formative years of young adulthood. You can’t take that back. So, it breaks my heart to be reminded that he still cares. How tragic it is to have this person to share a love with but be doomed to never see each other because it’s too unhealthy. But as it is, and it is.

Inevitably, my friend regretted telling me that he wanted to reach me. It was debated. I told him it was fine that it came out. I debated telling him this was how I felt. I didn’t want him to be discouraged from divulging other details about him in the future. Is that so bad? I don’t know. Even though it broke me a bit to hear his care, this has led to me processing the relationship in a way I never did when it ended. I never let myself cry it over. But it’s sad. And tragic. It deserves to be cried over.

I’ve spent the last few years under armour regarding him. Not even intentionally, merely automatically. Quick to make quips about how awful he is. I did this rather than let myself get over him. It was all to abstract him into my own personal Disney villain. But the nuance is back. I don’t know if I can crawl back into the armour again. Perhaps it’s better this way. Perhaps this is growth.

I can remember the bad. How jealous he got whenever somebody else got close to me, how callous his comments could be, how disrespectful of my boundaries he was, how sharply he’d pull away whenever we’d hug because he was dealing with his own guilt.

But I can remember the good, too. How fun he was to be around, the little world we created for ourselves, and how beautiful of a person he could be when he got the social cues right. I can remember us running over gophers in Writing-on-Stone (accidentally, I promise) and singing Cher together across the High Level. I’ve never had someone else like him and likely never will. For better or worse.

I can even recall how I wasn’t always the best to him. How erratic I could be. How emotional I became. How I couldn’t let go. How toxic I was, even though I only blamed him for how toxic everything was. I wish I could’ve been better.

In the last year of us, he was making legitimate efforts to be a better person. I could feel myself pulling him back, hurting his progression. I was bringing him back to the person he influenced me into. I couldn’t let him be someone else because even though he stopped crossing lines, I never resolved the past. I couldn’t reconcile who he was with who he wanted to become. Even though who he wanted to be is somebody whom I likely could have a healthy relationship with. Have I mentioned how tragic this all is?

I’d be lying to you, to me, if I said there’s no hope. I want to move on and hope to find room for him again when I do. It depends on if I’m truly able to forgive him for the past and leave it there. But I have another ex, probably equally on par with him for emotional impact, and I’ve been able to forgive and find peace, in time. So perhaps our love doesn’t have to be tragic and doomed by impossibility. Perhaps instead it can be something different and healthy. Something realistic. If this is possible, it will require something radical from me: finally accepting him for who he is. And let that be enough. What I wanted from him was but a reverie; however, I’ve been fortunate to get most things I wanted from him from others, particularly my current partner of nearly 5 years. And there’s no drama or baggage to it. My needs are simply met. Much healthier.

I’m still not sure where things will land, though. I have to accept that it may not be best for him to return to my life, and that peace for me may have to be from a distance. At the very least, I’m not ready for him yet. I need to process everything, give myself the time and space, and see where I wind up on the other side. But I’m capable of doing it. And I know he can’t be a ghost anymore. He’s a real, beating human. Fallible, but still loved. Remembering this, my armour no longer fits, and through this, I’m able to start moving on from the past. From there, I will find peace, eventually. For now, all I can do is hope he is doing well and genuinely mean it.