10-18-00
I have recently stood accused of perpetuating a revisionist history of sorts.
I stand guilty as charged.
My history is a varied collection of circumstances, happenstances, triumphs and tragedies. These experiences have been amassed over the course of my life, and then rendered down into easily-recalled, readily-consumable portions.
They are my memories, colored by my own perceptions. They are my parts of a greater whole that is the collective truth. And while they are true for me, they may not ring the least bit true for other parties involved in the fabrication of this history, as my memories lack the distinctive flavours that others possess.
Over a certain passage of time, these memories become further distilled into anecdotes that I choose to share with others. The impurities fall to the wayside, and the proof of the story is made stronger.
Maybe one person was wrong for transgressing against another with even yet still another. Maybe the wronged party was wrong for not seeing the transgression in the first place.
For years I've told the story about how my then-boyfriend cheated on me the entire course of our relationship with a good friend of mine. And that I didn't discover this until after we broke up. That they ended up engaged and living together. That he cheated on her too, and over a long and difficult period of time they eventually parted ways.
This is the pared down, sanitized version. This is the version I choose to remember, forgive and forget. Because with the passage of time, I have forgotten the hurtful bits.
But I have also neglected the whole truth, the good with the bad.
While we dated, Porter was for the most part an excellent boyfriend. This was during one of the most difficult times of my life, and I freely admit that I was a complete nightmare to be around. I vacillated between utter indifference and completely obsessive mania. I was physically and emotionally abusive. I was as likely to lash out with a fist as I was to seek the safety of a comforting embrace.
Porter took this all in stride. He brought me flowers. He cleaned up after me. He dragged me outside when I hadn't seen the light of day for a week. He fed me when I wouldn't eat. He entertained me when I Was bored. He gave me love when I demanded it, and took the harsh words and the fists when I was being demanding.
And we fought. Though I tend to forget about the fighting, we spent almost as much time not dating in that time period as we did dating. And during these hiatuses -- Jesus, is that a stupid word to use in the context of a relationship -- during these breaks, I was guilty of seeking emotional and physical comfort from others.
I slept with a former flame once. I was so incredibly drunk on Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill wine that I don't really remember much of the actual events of the evening beyond a lamp breaking, being conspicuously noisy, and that I ended up with hickeys in undisclosable locations. I also had a week long dalliance with a sweet young thing that never went beyond first base. He was so incredibly sweet and literally virginal that he got on my nerves. Instead of lashing out at him, I sent him packing.
They always say that hindsight is 20/20. In retrospect, I have no idea where Porter found the time to 'cheat' on me. Obviously when were in between seasons, he was free to pursue whatever relations he chose. I didn't ask and he didn't tell. But I know now that it was going on the entire time we were together. If my eyes had been open wider, or my range of focus had extended beyond my immediate vicinity, I would have seen and recognized all of the glaring, flashing neon signs and arrows pointing to what was wrong in, on, and around our relationship.
But I didn't, and that is as much my fault as it is his. I am not forgiving the transgressions for having ocurred. I am forgiving them because instead of haunting the present, they belong in the past with the rest of my history.
