You ever realize how much of a dumbass you were when you were in high school?
After going on a couple of dates with Jade, I've realized that Syd and I did not have the uniquely mature and beautiful relationship we thought we had. We had told ourselves that our relationship was based in friendship and caring for one another compared to all the other high school relationships that were purely based to please those heathens' sexual desires. Of course those sorts of relationships do exist, especially in high school, but after talking with Jade, who's been playing the dating game longer than I have, I see plenty of young relationships are based in friendship. In reality me and Syd's relationship wasn't all that special.
It makes me mad, not so much at myself now but at myself then. I lost myself to our relationship because I was told by her and I told myself that we were special, soulmates, bound for a life together, which stopped me from seeing things clearly. I had lost myself to the mythos of our bond, blindly believing the religion of our love, not willing to go against the holy scripture.
I'm a little mad at my now self that it took me until now to see it. Even after I went on two dates with Eliza and had become infatuated with Flo, I still believed me and Syd had something special. Now with Jade I feel like we are making more of a connection, I'm feeling how I felt with Syd a few years ago, but now understanding these feelings better.
It just wholly recontextualises my understanding of the past few years.
I feel grateful for it though, seeing clearly, understanding my experience as ordinary, no longer wishing for something special to come along, instead hoping again to have something ordinary, but this time to see it for how it is, and thrive in its ordinariness.