February 24, 2018
Hello Richard,
Thanks for talking with me. It helps to talk.
You want to know the reality? If I did love Jeff, it was because of what he did for me, not because of who he was. I accuse him of an opportunistic sex grab with me. But I’m guilty of an opportunistic ego feed with him.
I’m probably partly guilty of that with any man, including you. In my defense, over time, as a friendship develops between us, it’s less about just me and more about us in relationship. But I never had the time to develop a true relationship with Jeff. So, it was always both of us grabbing at the other for what we thought would meet our need.
Bottom line, I believe that we all act in our own best interest most of the time, if not all of the time. You have children. You don’t have the option to act in your own best interest 100% of the time. I don’t have children. Other than feeding my cats, I get to do whatever the fuck I want.
But really… How could I say I love Jeff? I don’t know Jeff. We don’t have a real life relationship. I’ve never spent time with Jeff other than in bed, and that was 40 minutes at a time for five times total in 14 months. You can’t know someone under those circumstances.
And if you read the book you’ll see that his emails are extremely sparse and extremely far between and they reveal little of who he truly is. Only fleeting clues — which I’m sure I misinterpreted much of the time.
I just latched onto him. Solidly latched onto him. I needed a target or a source. I needed a root, some sort of starting point maybe? I needed to connect with him and stay connected to him. I don’t understand why. I really just don’t.
He told me over and over that I put him on a pedestal that he didn’t deserve. But once I pieced together his story, it sealed the deal. I just refused to see him as anything less than perfect. I needed to see him as perfect, I desperately needed to see him that way. I don’t understand why. And it cost me, and it cost him.
And now I’ve lost him completely. I’m devastated. And I have no real idea why. Because intellectually, I’ve lost nothing. I never had anything to lose.
Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red. -Kait Rokowski
Photo by Tash Guimond on Unsplash