What is The Point in This?

February 1, 2015

Why do I write the plaintive messages? These love letters to a man who will not see them, and even if he does, is unlikely to be moved by them?

At first they were hopeful, almost romantic. A little message in a bottle, thrown out to sea, carrying all the things that I wanted you to know during our time apart. I imagined that you would pluck the little bottle from the water, read the words, and know you were loved.

Later, they became statements of purpose, to prove (prove to who?) that I was coping during our time of estrangement. All the things I wanted you to know, typed up just for you. I imagined you reading them and being impressed at my progress.

Now these words feel less like a romantic message in a bottle and more like a huge billboard on the side of a road that you never travel.  They are not the powerful messages I had hoped they would be.

So who is this for, exactly? What is the point to this? And why am I spending my time doing this?

Ah, yes.  I do this for me.

Landmines

February 6, 2015

At the beginning of this conflict, I was careful to tiptoe through the minefields, aware that any step could trigger an unexpected explosion of emotion.  I moved slowly and gingerly each step mindful. I carefully archived the emails, deleted the playlists, packed away the mementos, hid the photos. All actions done deliberately to avoid detonation.

As time passed, I became more comfortable and would pass through the field a bit more quickly- after all, I knew where the trouble spots were, so I could easily avoid them. I knew which places were out of bounds. Which routes would trigger a reaction. And as I became more removed, I grew more confident. My steps became less ginger, more purposeful, more brisk.

How arrogant of me to think that it was safe to skip through that field.

Today, as I strode through, I happened upon a folder labeled VIP in my inbox. I didn't recall creating it, so I opened it. And... ka-blam! There were your early words to me - so earnest, so heartfelt:

"I have looked into your eyes and I see the rest of my life in them."
"I want to share the rest of my life with you, and I will do whatever it takes to get there."
"It is really worth fighting for."

And I come undone. Pieces of me scatter, my legs completely blown out from under me. The landmines haven't been defused. I had just gotten skilled at avoiding them.

Until I wasn't.

And here I am, in pieces yet again.

Ugly Truths

February 5, 2015

I am forcing myself to feel every drop of this. All i want to do is make it stop - to distract myself. To find another person, action, project, anything to take my attention away from the sting of this.   But I will not. I will take the full brunt of it. Shielded by nothing. Distracted by nothing.

I will not be beaten by this.

I have been allowing myself to cling to hope, the glimmer of possibility, the promise of the future. But that is gone. There is only the bitterness of this. The pain and the disappointment and the harsh truth that you are done with me.

I admit, I thought this was temporary. I believed it was a hiatus and not a finale. I thought "see you on the flip side" was code for "see you later, alligator."  

And I struggled with that. Estrangement was tough, but at least there was the hope.

Only now, with the absence of that hope, do I realize how heavily I was relying on it. Now faced with this ugly truth, I can barely stand it.  

But I will. I will face it - head on. I will not run from it. I will not hide from it. I will not deny it.

Because while the crush of rejection hurts deeply, I know it will pass. Every day will be a little better, until one day you'll just be a memory.

It is hard to admit that you don't want me. But that doesn't mean I am unwantable. 

And just because you don't love me, doesn't mean I am unlovable.
It doesn't.
It does not.

I will not let it.

I will not become bitter. I will not shut down my heart. I will not retreat into myself and hide away from the world.  

No matter how much I want to.

I never loved anyone the way I loved you.  I've never hurt the way I hurt now.  And I will feel. every. pang until it is completely done.  And then... then? 

 A new day will begin.

Strong(er) Swimmer

January 25, 2015

There is a reason why I don't send these thoughts directly to you. It's not out of prudence or propriety or even fear.  It's because these ramblings only tell one side of the story. To read just these, one might think I'm sad, lonely, pining away in my little corner of the world. Waiting for the day when the winds will shift and the world will be made right again.

That's not quite true.

Yes, I do think of you almost every day. And yes, I do miss you. Your absence is palpable.  But please don't think that I am unhappy because of it.

I feel stronger than I ever have before. Some of that strength comes because I have this outlet - I can channel the darkness into a creative pursuit, so it doesn't consume me. This outlet allows me to drain away some of it when the water level gets too high. so I am not in danger of drowning.

I'm not sinking.
Not at all.
I'm learning to swim.

And every day, I get stronger, faster, with more endurance, more stamina.

So if the day comes when you and I find ourselves in the pool together again, I won't be looking to you to keep me afloat.  I will be moving by my own strength through the water with strong strokes. Agile, lithe, and purposeful.

I hope you will be able to keep up.

Lost and Found

February 1, 2015

I've have always been the finder of misplaced items: keys, socks, notebooks, bills. I'm the girl they go to when something important disappears. I close my eyes, and I can see exactly where it is. If it goes amiss, I bring it back again.

I'm very good at this, and I offer the service to others.  However, somewhere along the way, I lost something important. I lost myself.

Sadly, I had no idea it was even gone.

When I found you, I got lost in you so easily, that it didn't seem to matter. But you showed me, reminded me that something essential was missing. Initially, instead of searching for it, I just enjoyed being lost. And then, for a while, I looked to you to loan me that which I was missing.

That was kind of a disaster.

Turns out, you had lost yourself too. I - the finder of lost things - tried to help you locate it.  Unfortunately, that is a search you had to do yourself. So we started searching.  While the two of us were groping around, looking for what was missing, I lost you.

That was kind of devastating.

But something amazing has happened. While I was scratching around, trying to find a path back to you, I found something even better. I found myself. My strength. My direction. I found my voice. And my worth. And my courage. And my path.

What was lost now is found.

I hope you find what it is you were seeking. Even more, I hope somehow you find your way back to me. Because the best thing I can think of, besides finding myself, of course, is to find myself next to you again.

Sundays

January 18, 2015

For most of my life, I have dreaded Sunday.

As a child, it meant a long morning seated on an uncomfortable church pew, listening to the pastor drone on and on about absolutes and thou shalt nots. There would be a break, and then back that night for more.

In my early working days, Sunday meant the leisure of the weekend was ending. Time to panic and figure out what I was going to do with my students the next day. They were frantic and laden with anxiety.

Later, Sunday meant more teaching. The entire day almost. Drudgery.

Then for about 5 months of my life, Sunday became my favorite day.

Waking early with you next to me, the day stretched out with lazy possibility. We could do anything or nothing. Or both. We'd venture out to get fresh baked French pastries, overpriced coffee, and - even though there was one waiting for me at my place - a newspaper because you knew I loved to read it.

We would sit on your patio and soak in Sunday. Breathe it in. We'd watch Sunday morning TV, like we were somebody's grandparents and talk about. . . everything.

Rainy Sundays were my absolute favorite. The soft drumming background music of the rain seemed written for us, and while the it poured down, I never ever felt a drop.

Now Sundays are a necessary evil. The paper: a chore to be completed. The coffee: way too expensive and too much trouble to go fetch.

So I pass the time by recalling those past imperfectly perfect Sundays until the sun finally sets, and I can just go back to sleep.

Workforce Dispute

January 15, 2015

These days, it's only upon waking that the longing really kicks in. That moment while I linger on the border between consciousness and dreams, when Logic is still sleeping, is when my Heart and Desire conspire to bring you back.

They recall vividly how we used to reach for each other in the dim pre-dawn light, and how it felt to have your arms envelop me while I was still half asleep. They haven't forgiven me yet for letting you go - so they seem to conjure you at every opportunity.


There are parts of me who are furious at your departure. Hell, Pussy hasn't spoken to me in weeks. It will be a long time before she comes to terms with your absence.


During the day, Logic is strong, awake and aware, telling them all that it is necessary - essential - for growth, healing, development. And in the daylight, they all grudgingly agree. But as night ebbs and dreams dissolve into awareness - at those hazy edges, the troops rally to bring you back, to some how resurrect you from my memory and make you real again.

At those times, even Logic turns the other way - pretends to be asleep and allows the wanting to just flow. It's the only time all the pieces come to a unanimous agreement and like the mists of morning, that eventually evaporates in the rising sun.

Silent Witnesses

January 24, 2015

Most days, I'm fine. I'm functional. I wake up. Get myself dressed. Go to work and do my job. I shop for groceries. Prepare meals. Tidy my house. I even go for runs. I meet my friends for walks. I can talk about other things.

In fact, I barely speak of you at all.

But I can't lie.

There are moments when the tears overwhelm me. When I have to just put my pen down and let it wash over me. These are the moments when I feel like I will die if I don't reach out to you. When I can't think of anything but you.

Those moments, I find myself just holding on. I cling to the artifacts of our time together. The bottles of water you love so much, still residing in my refrigerator. The sad little used-up tube of toothpaste you picked up for me. The sweatshirt that I cannot bear to launder because it smells like your apartment.

To let them go is to let you go.
And I can't.

Since I do not speak aloud of the loss I feel, these items become my silent witnesses. They bear testimony to the love we shared. They are the witnesses who prove I didn't imagine it all.

The moments of distress pass - eventually.

When they do, I pick up my pen again, and I write it down.
To remember. To bear witness. To honor.

Because this testimony is not for nothing.

This is for everything.

Haunting

Now that all has been said and done, I have to decide what to do with all these remnants of memory. When I was with you, I was convinced that you were my forever, so every place we went, every thing we did had a sense of importance. It all went into the memory banks. Everything was significant.

There's not a place I can go that is untainted by your memory. So what to do? Do I avoid those places? If so, I'm going to have to leave town. I let you into every special place I had. To avoid them would mean not to go anywhere.

Since avoidance isn't an option, I've been consciously seeking them out. Going to those places on purpose, as if my presence will chase your ghost away.

Sometimes, it works. There are places I can go that are mine once again.

That makes me feel a little better when I come upon those spots that will always be yours. Those locations are so thoroughly haunted that I have no choice but to let the ghosts have them. They are the ones that I pass by with a chill in my heart and the sting of tears. [Tears? Seriously?! After all this, still the tears?]

You will always be there in my memory. So rather than fight it, I let my own past self go there too - just for a moment. It's then that I remember that for a while, there was joy and there was love. And I take that moment to be grateful for the sting of tears. They remind me that I am still here. Still alive. Still aware. They are the gift from my past me.

Without "then" there is no "now." And with that realization, those ghosts are a little less scary.

Wild Forgiveness

I am angry. I try to deny it, but there really is no point. It would be so much easier to be angry at you, but you are who you are.

It would be like being angry at a zebra for having stripes.

No, I'm angry at myself for thinking - by force of will and ferocity of love - that I could somehow transform your stripes to spots. For refusing to acknowledge that, no, this zebra is striped; it was clearly there in black and white.

It's a problem.

I will forgive you long before I forgive myself. But I suppose that is the luxury of moving on. I don't have to rehash YOUR missteps, mistakes and misrepresentations. I can tuck them away in a box with the memories of you. (Those mementos - which by the way, are no longer silent witnesses. I washed the sweatshirt. I threw out the toothpaste. And the bottles of water were served at your going away party.) But mine... Mine I have to carry. They are in danger of becoming the lens I view any future through.

But I don't want a future distorted by the past. I have to let this go.

I'm sorry I couldn't recognize your striped-ness early on; I could have saved us a lot of trouble. But at least now I know stripes when I see them. And I have the wherewithal to hold out for spots.

Revisionist History

Now that all is clear, I have to fight the urge to go back and revise my history. Would I have been so tender if I had known that the "time" and "space" you were taking was in another woman's bed?
Would I have wept so hard for you if I had known the truth of your duplicity?

Maybe. Maybe not.

I like to think my feelings were mine, and not dependent on the situation or context. Though, I admit it stings to know I cried for a man who only existed in my imagination.  That is who I mourn for now: the man I thought I knew. The man worthy of the love and tears I spent.

He's the one I long for, and the knowledge that he never existed is both blessing and curse.

So I feel foolish. But I also feel free.  I can now cut ties without guilt or regret. The time I spent wasn't wasted, because it was invested in me.

How's that for revision?

Breadcrumbs

With every early conversation, you sprinkled them
Along the path in the form of advice and
Probing questions
Urging me to follow.

Later, they were thrown down in
Frustration and exasperation
As I blithely refused to acknowledge
I was lost in the first place.

Finally, you threw your hands up, dropped the bag
Spilling its contents
And took off down the path
Alone.

I lingered in the woods a bit before
I looked up and realized
I was lost.
Really lost.

Slowly, I took those first tentative steps
Unsure, but following my heart,
I tried to navigate my way.
Not noticing the trail you had left.

Now, as I take each step forward,
I see them
Sprinkled on the path
And I remember.

I don't follow them exactly
Because it is essential
I find my own way -
Make my own trail.

But when I look down and see them,
They comfort me, reassure me.
You were there.
At one point in time, at least.

My steps are slow, but deliberate.
I try not to feel bad about
Being so slow
Lagging so far behind.

I concentrate on the step I am taking
Refusing to let my mind wonder
Where will the path lead?
Which is the "right way" to go?

It's my own path,
And the journey is what is important.
But I confess I would be delighted
If - somehow - it led me back to you.