Boom

The watch she bought me for Christmas stopped keeping time the week before we broke up, and I can’t help but look back with a tinge of envy that it knew our time was up before I did.

It didn’t happen all at once really. It was a slow disintegration, the chalk of our relationship left out on the rain a bit too long until all that remained was a pile of mush. I sat there and squeezed it through my fingers surprised at how soft it was and how quickly simply rubbing it through my fingers made us disappear.

The words are never ever easy to say, which is why sometimes it takes a few tries to spit them out. And like a bomb exploding, you can’t take them back–the switch has been flipped…for better or worse, we’ll see. For a moment, we just lie there, shocked, in the shrapnel trying to figure out if that really happened, waiting for the hurt to settle heavy in our bones.

I can’t help but wonder why no one has stopped me to ask about this bleeding hole in my chest or why these pain killers aren’t taking away any of the pain.

unfinished.

You sat there across from me
Your face, weathered, etched into
A history of our own
And in one quick moment,
I read the volumes unabridged
Off of the soft skin of your cheeks
Complex.
Captivated by your ocean eyes staring into my space
And my face–a hopeless attempt
to convince me of a truth that no longer exists
I watch the words escape your lips
quietly, sweetly, swaying gently and landing softly
Ashes of all the conversations we’d had before
Struck and burned and blown
Until they landed in the space between
Our words and our bodies
Visible, yet disintegrating at the touch
Like the contrived love notes
you left in random pockets of my suitcase and my soul
Tangible, yet meaningless
I felt the paper in my fingers
I read your scrawled writing
scratched by your nails into that sheet and the skin that covered my wounded heart
You hesitantly reach your fingers across the table
Miles of desert stretch out in the mere feet between our souls
And I flinch as I feel the valleys of
The prints of your fingers touching the flesh of mine

Damnit, Jamie

“I don’t feel like we’re communicating…connecting.  I don’t feel connected with you, tangled in you, in the way I want to be, in the way that I think we should be…this isn’t working for me.”

I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a conversation so difficult.

I keep thinking of a line from a country pop song, “so casually cruel in the name of being honest…”

I’m trying to be honest…but am I being cruel?  Fuck.  I hope not.

I sat there, across the table from you in that dimly lit pub, staring into my pint pretending it was doing something of great interest while all I was really doing was avoiding the sight of the tears welling up in your dark eyes, as I realized they were welling in mine, too.  And I couldn’t figure out if it’s because I was legitimately sad or if I was just feeling so fucking terrible for how I was making you feel at that moment.  Silently wishing that I could speed us right through this conversation to that point where we’re spit out on the other side–changed, perhaps pained, wiser, but still whole.

“Damnit, Jamie” you said, with confidence and clarity I’ve rarely witnessed.  You were serious, but I still wasn’t sure what you meant.

I never wanted to hurt you.

My mind was racing. Your smile was straight and bright and distracting. Am I fucking up? What if I’m fucking up.  What if this is as good as it gets and I’m fucking up?  I’m not fucking up.  I know what I want.  I know what the issues are.  I know this doesn’t work.  Calm down.  Find the calm–hold it close.  Breathe.

I paid the bill.  We grabbed our coats and walked out into the middle of a snow storm.

The clouds of freezing breath escaping us were the only thing that passed between our two bodies as we crossed the street. I instinctively reached my freezing fingers out to your hand and then reminded myself not to. I tucked my fingers back into my fleece lined coat pocket.  We end up on the corner.  Not touching. You’re parked that way, I’m this…

A snowflake landed on your cheek and I watched it melt as I leaned in to give you a hug. You said, “Okay, so I guess I’ll talk to you.” In that sentence, I hear your voice crack as your breath switched rhythm and I realized you’re crying.  I quickly let you go, turning to my right without even looking at your face one last time.  I couldn’t look.  I didn’t look back. I hoped it was snowing hard enough that as the distance built between us, you couldn’t see me and my unreturned gaze, even if you wanted to. 

 

Resolve

Resolutions.  

My sister posted on the topic.  It’s something I’d thought about, but since reading her post, I’ve been thinking a lot more.  What are mine?  

Resolve.

Resolute.

To do something.

What will I do?

I’ve thought of a lot of things:  Work out more.  Drink less.  Eat well.  Hydrate often. Give more. Be better in all of my relationships. Put my laundry away the same day I pull it out of the dryer (um, nearly impossible).

But I keep coming back to this idea of happiness.  Because, while I might “only” be in my 20s, I think I’ve realized that’s where it is–the good stuff.  

So this year, I resolve to be happy.  Purposefully happy. Intentionally happy. And to work at it on those days when I’m not really feeling it.  To stalk it down if I can’t find it.  And be gentle with it when it’s near, and be gentle with myself when it’s not.

Do I want to work out more?  Yes, of course.  Should I drink less?  Probably.  Do I want to continue to eat well?  Sure.  But if I happen to be enjoying life, and the moment I’m in, and I end up drinking a little too much wine and laughing until I cry, while eating junk food, and staying up so late that I miss the alarm for the gym in the morning, I resolve that I will not beat myself up for that.

This year, I will live the goodness.  I will search for it, and befriend it, and probably fight with it a time or two.  Hell, I’ll take it to therapy if the need arises.  But the truth is, I’m committing to this, and I resolve to find the happy.  The good that sneaks up in those short little moments when the laughter is loud, or the light turns green, or the words don’t end.  Those moments when the song that’s playing could fit your life’s soundtrack perfectly, or when the light is just right at the break of day and you wake up 10 minutes before your alarm and can just be…just lay there, gratefully and enjoy the peace of a new day and the dawn that comes with it.

I’m optimistic.  This is new.  I am going with it.

Happy New Year, y’all!

 

Conversations Worth Saving

She said, “So, answer this: Why don’t you know how to feel?”

I replied, “Because I’m almost embarassed by how tangled I am to this.  Like there’s this whole root system that bore its way into this relationship and those roots have settled themselves into all the mushy parts and even if the tree has been cut off the roots are still there. I need a person who knows more about trees to tell me how to get to the roots and kill them. To kill them and just let.this.be.over.  It’s just…the roots.”

She said, “When you take a tree out, roots and all, it’s pretty obvious for awhile. There is a large mound of dirt where the tree used to be. There is grass around it, and it makes the spot of dirt look darker and more obvious. But it does not make it look worse than when a dead tree was standing in the way of a great view. I’ve also heard that a tree’s roots go down as deep as the tree goes up into the sky.  Ergo, if you continue to grow this relationship, through communication, etcetera, you might draw the parallel that you’re making your roots deeper, clunkier, more tangled. It’s gotta stop growing before the roots can come out. No one can tell you how to do it. I think it’s about you making the choice that you respect yourself far too much to let this person continue to disrespect, manipulate and lie to you. You owe it to yourself to find who you are again, catch your breath, and get ready to plant some new roots.  That tree is dead and it is in the way.”

Texts

5:02a: “I wish you were here with me right now.”

The whistle of the text woke her from 6 solid, sound hours of sleep found only after the consumption of the glasses of wine she’d had while celebrating a dear friend’s birthday.  She quickly sifted through the tangled, blue and white striped sheets in the dark, although she knew instantly who sent the message. She knew this because she knew exactly who was traveling at this hour and exactly who was sitting alone, in an airport, without her.  She knew she should have turned the phone to silent before tucking it in with her the night before, and she knew without looking and without reading a word that the message was sent by KJ.

She was supposed to be on this trip, too.  Headed east to meet KJ’s family; KJ, who had become such a part of her life over the six previous months.  She was supposed to be there too.  To take those two long flights before landing in North Carolina and being consumed with days spent meeting sisters and brothers and parents and step-parents and nieces and nephews and turkey and grace and being thankful…but she didn’t go. She could not do it.

When she thought of KJ taking those two flights alone, next to an empty seat suffering the hangover she encouraged the night before while trying to forget, she felt …. Sad?  Sorry?  An inexplicable empathy only the broken-hearted can feel.

And she thought of the eight weeks leading up to this point.  The days and nights and omelets and text messages spent trying with such great hope that something would again click, that their voracious partnership, that passion or love or whatever it might have been, would re-emerge and exist as it had in the weeks before it’s premature demise a couple of months earlier.

But it never did click.  It never made sense.  The walls, built up and reinforced, proved indestructible despite the chisels and the hammers and bottles of wine and conversations and shared nights they’d taken up against them.

With a guilty heart and an apologetic stare two weeks before she should have been boarding that flight, she allowed five painful words to escape her lips, “I cannot go with you.”  And nothing was ever the same.

5:19a : “Maybe it will be like the movies and you’ll come to me.  You know, where you rush to the gate, suitcase in hand, right before we take off…”

She teetered over the precipice on which she stood, tumbling into the depths of a crumbling heart and the reality of the end.  The finality.  Over.

Because, you see, it’s not like the movies. She didn’t rush to the gate with frazzled hair and eyes filled with tears, apologies streaming her lips.  Instead she lay there, in her warm bed, blanketed with her favorite paisley green comforter and a paralyzing avalanche of emotion while she softly, solidly whispered, “goodbye.”

I cannot quit listening to this.

I quit.

I quit her, I did.

Not cold turkey, like I would have liked to–you see, they don’t make a patch for this kind of thing.  And she didn’t go away that easily.  There were a few weeks of late night texts after too much wine. Cigarettes smoked hoping that while I watched the slow orange burn and the smoke rise and twirl and disappear that she’d disappear with it.

But she didn’t.

And several times, just after I’d thought I’d forgotten about her, she’d catch me on Facebook chat or her name would appear on the screen of my phone and I’d be right back where I was, only days before. She’d reel me in just to make sure I was on the end of the line, to make sure she’d still had something floating out there and I’d be elated because, you know, she hadn’t forgotten about me and she was thinking about me, too…or something. For a while, she made it impossible to forget her, to move on.  I’d be feeling good, feeling strong, feeling like me…and suddenly a whistle from my phone would produce 20 characters on that white pixelated screen and boom, she was back. And I was back. Reeling.

So I quit trying to lose her in the bottom of glasses of wine that clouded my vision of what this was.  I blocked her on chat, unsubscribed from her feed on Facebook, deleted photos stored on my computer. And I quit trying to make her disappear into the air on the wings of exhaled smoke and I decided to get real.  And get strong.  

It has been over a month since I’ve seen her face.  Shared a laugh or a kiss or a story in person. And I do miss her.  I miss her smile and the fact that she could cook far better than I can.  I miss her carefree spirit and the lazy Sunday mornings and the conversations spent over endless mugs of coffee and Denver omelettes.  I even miss the nights when I’d lie awake listening to her snore after we’d been out for drinks.   I miss what I wanted her to be in my world. 

I do not, however, miss the insecurity.  The questioning.  The lack of communication and the struggle I felt when trying to define where I fit in this person’s world.  I do not miss the unreturned texts, the cryptic messages. I do not miss questioning my value, my worth.

Am I better?  Absolutely.  

Am I still a little heart hurt? Yes…but that’s waning.

I am better.

 

 

Heart Hurt

Where do you feel it?  She asked.

Everywhere.  I said.

What does it feel like?  She said.

Empty.  The kind of empty that that feels like nothing, but feels like pain all at the same time.  There’s nothing left there, but it aches so incredibly–a heavy hole in the center of your being.

How will you get rid of it?  She asked.

I don’t know.  I think I might sleep it away.  Or wait for her to come back. Or hope that in the morning she wakes up and realizes that she loves me back.

What if she doesn’t? She said.

Then I will wake up and hope it hurts a little less tomorrow.  And a little less the day after that.  Until hopefully one day I become full again, me again.  And put back all of the pieces I gave to her in hopes that she would love me, too.  I’ll put them back to where I pulled them from in hopes that the person I recreate closely resembles the one I started as…because I’m pretty sure I liked that person.  And I’m pretty sure she’s good enough.

Does it hurt?  She asked.

Terribly, I said.  And then I shut my eyes.

Because it won’t hurt so badly tomorrow.

I’m having one…

I’m having one of those days.  The “raw” kind.  Where everything feels exposed and tender and just a little off balance.  The kind where I woke up with a headache from all of the vodka I consumed at my friend’s birthday party last night and try as I might, it’s just not going away.  It’s the kind of day when my coffee-first-date bailed 20 minutes before we were to meet and then the thoughts of “Really, when is this whole thing just going to be easy? When am I actually going to find someone and it just clicks and then there’s no more thinking involved?”  Because dating blows, and dates bailing on you blows even more.

I don’t know.  I think I’m generally pretty good at staying positive and knowing that if I offer up good energy, I’ll get good back.  And I have–don’t get me wrong, this is not some “woe is me” thing–I’ve got a fantastic family, couldn’t ask for better friends, a job I enjoy and the freedom to live this life like I want to.  It’s just, some days, it seems like there’s something missing and on the “raw” days, that comes to the forefront.  Like, gets right in my face and won’t go away and I want to punch it a little bit but I’m not sure what exactly it’s got in its arsenal and I don’t know exactly if I’m strong enough to kick it’s ass or if it’s going to kick mine, so I sort of just back away slowly and hope it will go away.  

It’s just one of those days.  The kind that aren’t particularly eloquent and the poetry of it all just feels a little choppy and unfinished.  Much like this post.