Side Effects of You: Kill Bill

*Author's Note: 4-17-2014. This was intended to be the culmination of a five part series that lead to the Good Friday blog, however after a few Blue Moons, I think creatively, it might be best to start here posting this one first, and place it after the Good Friday Blog. Emotionally, I probably need to dump the emotions tied to the final entry as this has had the most profound impact on me. I've started this entry no less that 20 times and I think tonight in between beers sips and tears I can finish it. Let the weekend of dying and ultimately healing continue. I will return to write the author parts at a later date.
Soli Deo Gloria
TLT

"But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing

And nothing at all keeps sending him..."

~What a Fool Believes (The Dooby Brothers)

I debated on whether to include this final entry in this series as writing about this topic ALWAYS brings about more complications than being silent. But then I asked myself who is it more complicated for: me or the others in my space whom this topic is uncomfortable. However, the first rule in coming out of retirement was no censorship so I might as well be completely honest and write about this person that has left a side effect on me. I'm not sure side effects are even the most appropriate term. Side effects don't last a long time, unless they are residual. This is more than that. This is a gaping wound.

I thought long and hard about how to frame this situation. I kept asking myself what pop culture reference could I use that conveys the entire scope of our seven years together. Ike and Tina? Nah that's too cliched and intellectually dishonest? Batman and Talia? Close, but their dynamic was often complicated by proxy via Ra's Al Gaul. Then I remembered very simply a conversation she and I had some years ago about our dynamic and I realized I had the perfect example staring me in my face. Who we were, who we are can simply be found in the timeless love story (and yes it was a love story): Kill Bill.

For those of you who have been in a coma or living under a rock, Kill Bill is story about two dysfunctional arse people who took heartbreak and disappointment to the next level. I won't offer a full synopsis in the blog but you can either read it here or go check in out somewhere on the internet. I'll wait while you do that.

You finished? Good...now I can get started.. If you have been following this blog you know I've written about her quiet a few times as she has overlapped a number of seasons. She has been through a number of struggles. Yeah she was a major fixture in my life. Of course I'm talking about none other than Wei Yan. You can read about her here, here, and in a number of other posts. I'm sure if you goggled Wei Yan/Blackthought39 you'd get all the blogs mentioning her.   

So what makes this different. Whelp, to quote a line from the Kill Bill, I've never been able to tell the truth to her and what she meant to me. Honestly, I never told her the truth about anything regarding us to all but three people. Conversely, even now I believe she won't tell the truth about me yet that is all immaterial now. The difference is this there is nothing to be lost or gained because of one painful truth: Wei Yan got married. But more on that in a minute. Let's get started:

In our time together she was THE greatest:

• Student

• Lover

• Friend

• Ally

• Step Mother

• Confidant

• Weapon

• Source of Joy

• Source of Pain

• and ultimately enemy. 

As stated, I've written about our dynamic extensively in this space, perhaps as a way to try to make sense of how two people who loved each other so hard, so deeply could ultimately do so much harm to each other. I've put so much thought into US that this last entry in the series was actually written first. Somehow it just seemed proper and true to work on the side effect that had (and has) the greatest impact on me today. While the others do still run through my mind and spirit every one in a while,  more often and not this one keeps me awake at night. This one makes it impossible to ever listen to John Legend or even watch Kill Bill with the same lens. I've read our emails hundreds of times only last month stop reading that love letter she wrote me after my father died in 2006. Yeah. I read the same letter at least twice a month for the past 8 years.

Perhaps what makes this the so hard to process is that now with the hindsight of maturity and honesty, I can admit to myself that I truly loved her deeply. I loved her more than any other woman. Yeah I thought I loved others, thought others really were the truth and maybe a couple of them were that cold (after I this is a five part series) but Wei Yan was IT. I loved and cared for her. I just didn't know how nor want to know how to care for her by her needs. She become my "thing" and I stopped hearing her as a woman and a person. She used to accuse me of quitting whenever it got hard or whenever she didn't acquiesce to one of my demands to find something easier or as she put it an illusion of better. She often accused me of treating her as a tool or as some kind of pawn in a larger cheese game.

And you know what? She was f'n right. The interesting thing is that no matter how many times I thought I found better, the truth is none was better. None lasted. None out shined her when it counted. In all the attempts to break and replace her only one even came remotely close and ironically she's NOT one of the five. The truth is snarky mofo reading this is that I made a choice to get rid of one of the few people on this planet who loved me unconditionally (even if it was dysfunctional) and now I utterly regret it. This decision haunts my sleep and wrecks my spirit. It's par the course with me in matters of the heart. I get pissed, make an irrational decision and then I'm forced to clean up the mess. But this time there is no clean up. There is nothing. Not ever her children I claimed as my own. Nothing. I am deeply sorry for this.

Don't get me wrong I've FINALLY come to peace with the fact she's married. In the back of my mind and spirit I'm rejoicing that she found someone who could do what I wouldn't do. She found someone to love her and be all that I should have been but I was either to afraid or too stupid to be. I pray her marriage be blessed and long. I'm many things. I am not a hater and I don't wish for the worst. I want this to work.

Yet I'd be lying if I didn't say that I wish this was an alternative universe. In an alternate universe, Wei Yan would walk through the doors of this Starbucks, sit at my table and I'd simply say I forgive you and yes. I'd eat the backlash. I'd eat the losses. I'd eat it all because you know what I'd be where I wanted to be. I'd do everything from giving up Facebook to dueling multiple samurai's to make sure this time would be different.

And I wouldn't give two damns to what anybody thought about it. I'd actually hope and pray she forgave me.

But there are no alternate universes at least that I know of. There is the here and now and the promise of a better tomorrow.

Recently, I ran across a picture of her and her husband on twitter. She looked happy. Genuinely happy. My immediate reaction: I got totally sick. Pucking sick. I haven't been that type of sick in years. I threw up right there on the Red line and 35th. I couldn't even cry. I just puked. Then I went home and killed a six pack of beer. Nothing happened. All was left was me and my grief. 

Grief. Brother MB from school says I gotta get this up offa me. I need to write my Lamentations and leave it at the cross. (It's bad that folks know about her in Seminary. I've discussed her in Pastoral Care, with some students in Old Testament, and with some of the Black Seminarians.) He told me to cry and let it out and tonight I'm going to do that. I've already had a healing come to Jesus moment with another dear friend and now I need to have a moment with the Lord for me. I have no other option if I'm going to close this hole in my spirit and move on with my life. This has to die on Good Friday. It has to go in the tomb. I need to mourn and accept the truth. Castles made of Sand right....boy did I make this on sand.

Wei Yan once told me that the time for honoring myself would soon be over. She wasn't lying.  If I'm using the Kill bill analogy Kiddo got her revenge. She got her justice and Bill...got what he deserved....

Giving Honor to My Creator, Who is Forever Praised Amen
In Truth and Transparency,
TLT
4/19/2014
12:15am
*Originally started 1-31-2014, edited on 3-10-2014, and 3-27-2014. Completed on 4-19-2014