I realized when he said it, he needed it. This, after all the times that he said he wanted it to end. I ended it time and time again, inside my head, and in my heart where it left long ago. Still, we spoke of it.

How had they grown up to not be grown up? He felt betrayed by their lack of emotion, though it was constantly in motion. The emotional rollercoaster that failed to stop; climbing, pining, in its ascent to reach a height where it would spin downward, out of control, into that place where it relentlessly landed. Bottom. To begin again. Beginning, middle, end.

There was a teary facade that said feelings are hurt, while laying guts in its track of disrespect. What the heck? It masked itself as love; family ties. A lie, made to prolong its immaturity.

I wished for greater things and didn’t know why I was messed up in this with a man who could stand so solidly on the ground as the great one he is. Still, this persists.

They were two. A dichotomy? Living in different places. Together and apart they played their parts. One feigned good, the other bad. Then bad, then good. Then hidden, when he tried to bring them around to respectful ground. Then, apologetic. Then, forget it. Then, hungry for another adventure; trying to make good times roll…into a mess of distress.

I couldn’t understand it. Over our years, it lingered. He grew distance between them. Some. Didn’t talk to them, much. Email came, infrequently, coincidentally, at the same time, each of them, on the same occasion. It was like the removal of amalgam fillings. That old mercuric poison somehow still leeching through, even in its absence.

I tried to explain why the situation was nonsense. I tried to show instances of how what it tried to do, or what it needed, or what it wanted, just wasn’t necessary because it didn’t apply to a ‘natural way’ of being. He tried to see what I said, and, perhaps, he did. Still, it wouldn’t still to a place of non-existence; where there was peaceful silence uninterrupted. By presence, or thought.

He said he wanted to set a good example. He wasn’t sure if he was doing so. By abandoning the relationship, by not seeing them, he wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing. It seemed childish, he said. Was he now acting as the child? It was getting wild. While still mundane. Mildly, insane.

It sang so many different songs, I was lost in its cranky tune. Attempting to decipher, what was the need for all this? Overlooking the obvious.

Finally, after all the conversations; the walks, the talks, the analyzing, a revelation appeared. There were many of them along the way, but this one was the great one. The core. The origin. The seed. It was about the apple. The apple, and the tree.

It was nothing more than need. They were emotionally needy. A different form of greed. The two of them. And he. A triangle holds three. Which one would bend to give, while the other picked? Then, again. And again. From history, since birth. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The emotional wants exceeded the need to stop the histronics.

Now what? There is no more debate.

The only cure for emotional neediness is emotional maturity. Emotional maturity is achieved by not catering to emotional neediness.