Saying Goodbye, Letting Go, and Coming to Terms

So after my little revelation on Wednesday night, I have been at peace. I woke up Thursday for the first time with no ache in my chest and no preoccupation with my losses. I slept and watched TV and just relaxed. I didn't even bother to check my emails until yesterday before I got ready for work. In it was a response from Joe for the email I sent him Tuesday morning. I was surprised and a little leery to read it. But I did and this is what he said:

bottom line i read all your emails, and am still sick of the original argument and will do anything up to and including avoiding you all togethert to not have it again.

just agree to disagree and move on...otherwise i am never speakin to you again...

I had to laugh at this email. It just solidified what people have been telling me regarding this entire situation and Joe. This is the response that I sent this morning titled "goodbye":

In other words, I'm to ignore the apology owed to me, ignore the disregard for my feelings, ignore the cruel treatment towards me the past couple of months and THEN you will grace me with your presence. That’s not a true friendship, Joe. That's you trying to control me. And I realized that you have done this our entire relationship. You always threatened to take away your friendship if I didn't do whatever you wanted me to. And I always gave in because I never wanted our friendship to end.

Every time you have gotten upset with me or your feelings hurt, I always made the effort to try to smooth things over and make things right between us again. I always apologized and called and begged no matter if I understood why you were so upset or not. And when you had your times of self doubt and insecurity, I tried to build you back up and reassure you. Because as your friend....your best friend....that was what I needed to do. And I never minded or thought of it as a burden, because you are important to me.

But what I have finally learned during this whole nightmare experience is that you are either unwilling or unable to do the same for me. We obviously have different definitions of friendship. And while you are very generous with material things, you are very selfish emotionally. You believe that only a lover deserves your respect for and consideration of their feelings and emotions. Where as I believe anyone you care for deserves that respect. I would have never compared our friendship to a leash. I would have never told you that your feelings are not worth my time. I would have never ignored you during a time of grief. And I most definitely wouldn’t have purposely hurt you to make a point.

So bottom line for me is that while you see this as a simple argument that I refuse to let go of, I see this as a total disregard for me and my feelings. In a way, I do agree to disagree. I just don’t accept the terms of such an agreement. I realize that you will never apologize to me. You will never acknowledge and recognize my feelings. And you will continue to justify your cruel behavior towards me the past couple of months as acceptable since you have defined me as this jealous, petty person.

I still care for and love you, Joe. But I am not willing to over look these things for whatever little scraps of attention and affection you deem fit for me to receive. If I did, then I would be saying that it is acceptable to treat me this way and allowing for it to happen again. I'm no longer willing to do whatever it takes to keep this friendship, especially when I now know that it and I mean so little to you. So no matter how painful it is for me to let you go and for me to accept the fact that you are no longer a part of my life, I have to.

Like I have said before, I wish you a long, happy & healthy life. Take care.

I typed up this email before going to work yesterday. I had decided to wait to send it Monday night after work because I knew I wouldn't have to face Joe for 4 days afterwards. But I changed my mind. That's just me hiding again, and I don't want to do that anymore. We worked well together yesterday and that was after I had read his email & wrote out my response although he hadn't read it yet. So I woke up this morning and decided to just go ahead and send it now.

Hopefully he will take it well and we'll continue to work together with no problems. I'm finally letting him go. I now realize that he is never going to be the friend I thought he was or should be. He is who he is and that's okay. I'm just not willing to accept whatever crap he throws my way in the name of friendship anymore.

UPDATE... 3/8/09 11:30a

Joe's resonse to my email:

you keep tellin yourself all these lies....it'll make it all easier.

I have not responded and will not respond. No need. He is calling me a liar now. I guess I wasn't disrespected. I guess he didn't tell me that he didn't have time for my feelings. I guess he didn't ignore me after Oliver died. I guess he didn't just tell me that I either need to do what he wants, or he will never speak to me again. I imagined it all. WHAT A FUCKING JOKE!!!!!