Addendum to The Eight Years

So my post about the eight years gathered some some replies from Vernon. The main concern he voiced was about my comments over his un(der)employment in Corvallis. I don't know whether it was a fear of rejection or what. Finally he did say that he was grateful for the place to live. But still I'm not even a footnote, for the time that he and I had together for eight years in the midst of the story of him and Marjori.

And focusing on the financial is not my main concern, it's not the thing that is the hardest or the most heartbreaking for me. Secrets that he shared only with me, and the intimacies that that I/we never had with anyone else. Those things are so much more intangible than talking about financial support or in him not being homeless because he was in my house for eight years. In all not acknowledging the relationship we had is the most hurtful.

I thought better of him, that we did have a friendship, and a bond that would be respected in our absence from each other. That I would have his ear to discuss things that were hard in my life—at all times—and forever.

However subsequent discussions we had after I moved down here and he went back up to Corvallis should've warned me that that might not be the case. My struggles with Zack, who was the manager of my cousin's mobile home park, that I talked with him about were met with a well you just have to understand there will be difficult people in your life and you just have to put up with it and you can't expect anything to be better. This is basically what he said when I moved in about the carpet. Like Yaney you have to accept shit in your living space because there are other people who would just love to have a place at all. But really don't we all deserve to live in a decent place? Maybe not at the level the Americans live. But this is what is expected in America. And who would want to visit my house? And how would it affect the work I'm trying to do here?

I guess that's what it comes down to is that I wasn't worth it, for him to really pursue contributing financially, or now even in friendship by acknowledging the eight years. I don't know that anybody really thought that I was worth it, looking at everyone that I come across, even my mother. Russell did his best considering the employment situation in Corvallis and with the resources that he had as a Vietnam Vet. Michael still feels that he has a financial commitment to me and he is doing what he can. But with unemployment it's a very hard road right now for me.

And when we were together and he was having conversations with Marjori my feelings were always taken into consideration—at least by her—or so it was reported to me. I never did have a conversation with her about the things she and he we discussing in renewing their relationship. But now that I'm gone, conveniently so I'd say, my feelings mean nothing, they are just an inconvenience.

Maybe this explains his crankiness to me after I moved. Maybe deep down he really knows he supposed to honor me, maybe he never really did. And maybe deep down he knows he isn't now. But the press he gives himself says it that's the kind of man he is and that's what most people believe him to be.

And I wonder if part of the problem with American males on the left is that they switch their guilt about America by putting it off on the women. And Vernon is in that grouping. What else is “American Woman stay away from me” all about? How Adam and Eve and the snake.

Dang he was the cutest thing I've ever seen! And minus a few crushes that left me broken hearted for a bit, this is my first break up since 1980. I think I will be gentle on myself about it. As I maintain, public acknowledgement of our eight years, or what he felt good or bad about those eight years, would go a long way towards repairing this broken trust.