Posts tagged with "women"

Seagull

Watched an old crush get mar­ried today.

There was­n’t a hint of pre­ten­tious­ness in her face. She was nev­er pos­ing, nev­er reserved. Atop a sim­ple wed­ding dress — which she once told me her mom was sav­ing for her to be mar­ried in one day — she wore the taught smile that always scrunched up her cheeks.

Ten years lat­er, and she still has the same hair: short, sandy, with curls part­ed in the mid­dle. She was one of those peo­ple who did all her grow­ing in high-school. By the time I met her, she was already the per­son she was going to be for the rest of her life.

And that was okay, cause she was already great.

nothing gold can stay

The tears and the smears on my glass­es which I look through to type this are telling me I’m still not over her. Or per­haps, the idea of her, because she had always held back a part of her­self from being mine com­plete­ly.

This is what hap­pens when a true friend stabs you in the front. I guess I’ve been avoid­ing these thoughts for a while now, and con­front­ed with them in con­ver­sa­tion, the real­i­ty has nev­er been more clear.

I’m still a bro­ken man.

Even with the mixed sig­nals, the incon­sis­ten­cy, and the pain, it was still the most sig­nif­i­cant rela­tion­ship I’ve ever had, and that’s what makes it so hard to let go. My oth­er rela­tion­ships may have been free of all the dra­ma, but they also lacked the depth, inten­si­ty, and inti­ma­cy.

There’s noth­ing I would have changed but the end, which dragged on for a year, one suture ripped out after anoth­er. It was far from a clean break, and any­thing but res­o­lu­tion.

I know I was­n’t the only per­son to go through the pain of sep­a­ra­tion, but the break was­n’t sup­posed to last for­ev­er. I was will­ing to step away so I could heal and be strong enough to be friends in time, to be there for her, to be ready to accept the next guy. And most impor­tant­ly, I was will­ing to come back.

She was sup­posed to be strong enough to let me go until I was ready.

Letter

I believed her.

Why could­n’t it have end­ed that night, instead of the mind­fuck that con­tin­ued for months after? Why could­n’t the last thing for her to leave me be the let­ter she wrote on the sta­tion­ary I gave her? Why could­n’t she have kept the promise she made to do what­ev­er it took to keep me in her life, and stayed away?

We haven’t seen each oth­er in over half a year. It’s been even longer since we had an actu­al con­ver­sa­tion. It’s time for me to wake the fuck up. It’s time for me to deal with my emo­tions and the real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. It’s time for me to move on instead of hold­ing on. It’s time for me to under­stand that I’ll nev­er be what she needs, and she’ll nev­er accept me as I am.

It’s time for me to real­ize that it’s over.

punch-drunk

My lack of writ­ing about her late­ly has­n’t been an avoid­ance of the sub­ject, or an attempt to feign some kind of detach­ment. It’s because my thoughts about her nev­er ful­ly form any­more. Or they come in lit­tle bits and pieces, lin­ger­ing mem­o­ries in an off-guard moment.

The care­ful steps I took to avoid the loose tile on the path to her house, so as not to wake any­one when leav­ing let­ters in her mail­box. Her sac­cha­rine voice when she’d ask what I was think­ing, and the first time I could­n’t lie (I’m think­ing about how in love with you I am). A tear we shared, as it rolled from my eye to hers. I’ll even catch that uncon­trolled gig­gle of hers in the melody of a song that drifts in the air. So many details found in the sub­lim­i­ty of our time togeth­er that I told myself nev­er to for­get.

Maybe that’s why it’s still hard not to think about her. Nothing was ever ordi­nary when she was involved. I don’t talk to my friends about it any­more; there’s noth­ing left to say. Only mem­o­ries that fol­low me like a shad­ow. I won­der if they avoid bring­ing up the sub­ject with me any­way.

Sometimes, I still sec­ond-guess myself. Could I have saved us in some way? Would things be any dif­fer­ent if I had let her heal, or shared more of myself, or giv­en her more time, or been a stronger per­son? If only vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty or infat­u­a­tion or hope­less roman­ti­cism was con­sid­ered charm­ing. If only love or desire was enough to win some­one over.

Maybe I’m just cling­ing to the fact that I believe she tru­ly loved me back. It was one of the only things in this world I knew was real, and it made my heart swell every time she was next to me. The world made sense, if only for a moment now lost to the past. Or maybe I’m scared I’ll nev­er feel this way about some­one again because she was every­thing I ever want­ed, even flawed in all the right ways.

I’ve been ruined, and I don’t mind. Not any­more, at least.

I’d rather be alone than with any­one else. I can’t tell if it’s because I’m stub­born­ly try­ing to hon­our what we had, or a sub­con­scious part of me is wait­ing for her to come back because my heart can’t give up on some­one who made me feel so much. After all, she became my life, and to give up on her would be to give up on myself.

I know I’m not the only one who’s ever gone through this. Fate has proven fore­sight to be in vain for many a mice and men. Some peo­ple lose their spous­es — the per­son they expect to be with for the rest of their lives — and pick them­selves up. There’s no rea­son I can’t do the same.

But I’ve already picked myself up, and I’m hap­py. It does­n’t mat­ter that she’s not with me now, or that I haven’t stopped lov­ing her, or that she prob­a­bly does­n’t even think of me any­more. The expe­ri­ences have left me sat­is­fied and ful­filled. Our rela­tion­ship may have last­ed only a few sea­sons, but in that time I loved and was loved enough to be con­tent with what I had for the rest of my life.