Diary of a Ginger Prince

I thought yesterday morning was really constructive. I learned such a lot about you and thought I was supportive.
Then lunchtime happened and you threw a grenade.
You claim it wasn’t intentionally incendiary. I can’t quite see it that way. I played the “Dead Wife Immunity Card” on account of it being six months. I then foolishly threw a counter-punch. You followed with your Joker — 💣!
The grenade and the bomb are interwoven in the same story, so consciously or subconsciously, there was intent?! Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way, you touched a nerve.
I think we were dangerously escalating. You used the word “spiralling” yourself.
If you wanted an early stress-test of our relationship, I think you succeeded. I honestly considered tapping out.
I didn’t.
Because something important happened yesterday.
We both identified that the process was running away with itself. We were nearing critical mass and about to go nuclear. And then we both pulled back. We both sought de-escalation.
The old us would, by this morning, be piles of embers.
Instead, we’re talking about what happened.
If we do succeed in getting back together, is this how it’s going to be?
We keep saying we’re essentially the same people we were 30 years ago. That’s both the blessing and the curse. With all the qualities we’ve added to our inventory, we’re still passionate, emotional people. We’re both strong personalities.
We’re high-maintenance.
We’re two Suns. We both burn hot. Our old solar system couldn’t handle two Suns. We couldn’t imagine how.
Now I think we can sustain them.
With two such heavenly bodies, there’s bound to be difficulties. There’s also going to be an extraordinary amount of energy. That’s a relationship that is worth having but needs working at. It isn’t going to run itself.
From what I can ascertain, perhaps we’ve sought out the wrong partners in the past? We’ve looked for counterweights. We’ve perhaps hidden some of our true natures in order to make relationships work.
Nothing to disparage my time with Jude. It was a good, solid, vanilla 25 years.
But perhaps vanilla wasn’t the answer.
Perhaps we were trying to build relationships around being less of ourselves.
Maybe the thing we’re discovering now is that neither of us actually needs the other to burn less brightly.
We just need to learn how to orbit each other without destroying the solar system.