Part - 2: Canto General.[continued from <<Part - 1]
No explanation will serve to reduce my guilt, or assuage your hurt.
Then why bother?
Several reasons, really; all of them selfish. First of all, it will help me live with what I have done. Secondly, there is just an outside chance that you might understand the pressures that make people do the things they do. Thirdly, it may help me request that all-important space that I so desperately need with you, to ask for your forgiveness. As you rightly pointed out, when that does not exist, the rest, indeed, is superfluous.
Perhaps the hardest part of any explanation is going to be to entreat you to see things from the perspective of someone in radically different reference frames of time and circumstances from yours. It is not going to be easy for me to try and transport you to those vantage points, however virtually. Also, it is far more difficult to forgive at 29, than it is at 42… and, I would appreciate it if you choose not argue that one. I have been where you are now, and I know. So, you see, Ash, I am starting off with the deck stacked squarely in my disfavor. I have no complaint about that. If one chooses to cite reference frames in one's plea, one can hardly complain that that choice hamstrings one’s defense as well. It is important, however, for me to convey that an explanation is imperative, if one is to try and distinguish the act from its perpetrator. The former may not be worthy of forgiveness, the latter, at the very least, will strive to be so.
Accepting my explanation, or not, as my grounds for begging your forgiveness, is your prerogative, entirely.
You are no stranger to my circumstances. I have also shared with you my defining moment of a year ago when I realized that I must spend a significant portion of my immediate waking hours looking for someone I can enjoy growing old together with. You have always been clear that that someone is not you. I have no quarrel with that. A week ago, when I chose, finally, to meet with you, it was because of who you are. I visited with no expectations. To me, you were a great woman, who was already spoken for, and so shall you always be. I would have wanted it no other way but one, and we both knew we were too late for that.
However, I know now that I misjudged the intensity of your commitment under those circumstances even, and, for that, I may never be able to forgive myself. Ash, I never doubted that you have the courage of your convictions… I simply did not realize you felt obligated to demonstrate that courage as well. For that, I am forever in your debt. The sad fact remains, nevertheless, that in failing to acknowledge the demonstration, I undermined the conviction itself. I have no plea to offer other than the fact that the limited encompass of my mind does not even begin to approach the breadth of yours, and therein lies my unworthiness.
This is not about trying to convince you that you were wrong in finding me unworthy, it is about acknowledging that you were right.
Had I only failed to appreciate the intensity of your commitment, then, perhaps, there might have been room for doubt that I was naturally, frustratingly dense. Falling hook, line and sinker for your friend Runa, certainly put paid to any such illusion. Whether or not I misjudged Runa's reciprocation is the subject of an entire, separate, discussion in itself; but your extolling of her virtues, her obviously infectious attitude towards life, and evident reciprocation (separate discussion, remember?) presented too deadly a combination for someone who had been starved of affection for so long. Especially so, since I am not only immensely vulnerable, but quite simply believed that this had your tacit approval as well. I wasn't entirely thoughtless, Ash. I even slipped in a reminder about my age. It made no difference with her. Runa is your best friend, and you had, evidently, chosen wisely. It is, again, your greatness, that made you gloss over this strange turn of events by saying that you wanted only good things to happen to her. I was just too blind and stupid to see it
[concluded in Part - 3>>]
[Author's Note: Wildflower is not to be confused with the Wildflower of posts labelled Saga. The identity-crisis is coincidental.]
[All posts ©opyright of the author. Syndication rights reserved.]
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