The unforgiveable destruction of illusion

Some days my heart aches in ways that are difficult to describe...difficult to even admit.  I stare at the ring on my finger and I feel so many conflicting emotions that it becomes overwhelming.  Love, unquestionable love and desire.  Hope, for happiness and comfort.  But also a deep and ever-present darkness...anxiety, worry, despair. 

I have stood here before.  Not here, it was very different.  I was...naive, gullible, innocent.  He was...deceptive, calculating, cold.  As more time passes the memory fades, both in importance and clarity.  I don't love him anymore.  I wasn't sure that would be possible back then. I was sure that kind of love was...inescapable.  That the poison would linger, that his thorned vines would continue to tangle...to strangle...and I would never be free.  Yet here I stand, "free". And yet I am caged, not by him or even his memory.  I now realize that the real prison was made by me.

He changed me.  What he did to me cut so deeply, so suddenly that I cannot pretend to be untouched, that I have somehow overcome the trauma.  He abandoned me.  He made me question my self-worth.  He showed me that people lie, and people manipulate, and that all people do not have good intent.  He tore apart everything I believed in and everything that I thought I knew was true.  And the hardest part is not what he did, but that I let him.

A lot changed after this.  Everything I believed in, everything I thought I wanted...it wasn't true anymore.  And a few years went on, and as much as I could I healed.  I dusted myself off, I stood on my own and I kept going.  And a big part of me believed that I had truly healed, that I was okay.

I see now that I am not.  I see the darkness within this sparkling symbol of love, of commitment, of promise.  And that crack in my heart pangs.  It whispers, it worries.

I'm not good enough.
I don't deserve this.
He can't love me.
I'll ruin it.
He'll give up on me.
I'll lose him.
...I'll never be what he needs.

And sometimes I feel like my soul is screaming at him...warning him.  Telling him that he has made an impossible promise.  Because he can't love me.  Not like that, not forever.  Because a long time ago someone broke forever for me.  He shattered it, and he left the pieces scattered... splintered... torn.

Is it wrong to want closure?  I have moved past love, and hate, and even regret. I am exactly where I want to be, but I am terrified that if I don't say some things out loud, if I don't get get some answers, that my heart may betray me.  Because this busted heart...it is so good at running.  So bent on escaping the inevitable.  Run before he leaves you. Run before he forgets he cares.  Run before he sees the fractures, the flaws, the tears. 

But I am so tired of running...

Why did I stop believing in forever? Why did I begin to question whether I could ever be loved, protected, respected?  Why did I give up on that white picket fence, bringing life into the world and for once feeling what family meant...real family? 

He asked me if I wanted to have children the other day...and I didn't answer. I couldn't...because all I could see was another's face that day at the jewelry store when he asked me to look at rings and joked about what we would name our babies.  I saw the illusion of hope in his eyes, and I remembered how it felt to be surprised...And also how it felt when the curtain fell and the truth was all that remained.  It all came back...the hurt, the pain, the disappointment, the disbelief, the doubt.  So, I in turn created an illusion, a distraction.  And I didn't tell him the truth.  The truth that I often doubt that others can love me, that I deserve to be a wife, a mother.  He made me fear love.  And while I can forgive what he did to me, that is something I cannot forget, something that I believe may be unforgettable.

And I think what upsets me the most is that I can't find the strength to share this with him. That I don't feel like there is a way to adequately describe these feelings and flashbacks that attack without warning.  I don't even see him anymore...not really. I see those emotionless eyes as he told me that he didn't love me, that maybe he never did and that he probably never could. I hear him tell me that he chose to share his bed with another because he knew that was the only thing that would push me far enough away.  I hear him chuckle heartlessly as I began to cry. And I watch myself almost in slow motion beg him to stay and feel the stabbing pain of being thrown at the wall and lose my breath as I watch him raise his fist at me.  And the emptiness consumes every piece of my mind as I am forced over and over again to accept that I broke every promise I ever made myself by allowing him to remain in my life after all of this.  My nightmare is more about how much respect I lost for myself than it is about what he did. 

The bruises have healed. The scars from the cuts have faded. But that feeling that I was not enough lingers...buried deep it festers and with just the right push it reemerges. Swallowing me whole and bringing me right back there. To that apartment. Bleeding and bruised and more alone than I've ever been.

But as I continue to look deeper at this diamond on my hand and I force myself to look at the man that was brave enough to offer it to me I know this is different. I know that this is real. The thoughts are so conflicting that I feel ripped in two. One half screaming at me to run, to save myself from more hurt. The other pleading for me to stay, to save me from myself. And this is all boiling under the surface as he smiles at me and asks me about my day. The unseen battle. The unknown war. And I smile and I tell him about my day and the screams they settle to mere whispers for at least another day.

And I try to believe that one day I might feel worthy of the love I see shining in the eyes of a boy that I know I may never deserve.

She often looks back and wonders when and how her life ended up like this.  As if there will be one glaring and obvious moment that changed it all.  Knowing full well that the truth is that she changes everyday, that we all do. 

She is a well-educated and intelligent woman.  And yet, she will not give up on the most unrealistic and fictional dream of them all.  She is smarter than she is allowing herself to be, but this is due entirely to the size and functionality of her heart.  She knows full well that her heart is not her emotional center (or anyone's for that matter), that this is merely a symbol and long-standing fiction.  But she does not give up.  She can't.  Because her heart hurts, and she cannot for the life of her figure out why.

She lives an honest life.  She works a 9 to 5 job, and in her own little way she does what she has always wished she could do, she changes the world.  She pays her bills, and cares for her dog, and she loves him.  And yet something is missing, something more than she has always known was not there.  She has lost a lot, but none of those losses explain the overwhelming sense of emptiness, of incompleteness anymore.  She has moved on and she has forgiven many, let go of so much anger and so much regret.  And yet she feels the pangs, the reverberations of the past.

She said once that she was a completer, that she was someone that made others whole.  She sees now that she may have gotten some of that wrong.  She lost...loses... pieces, so many pieces, along the way.  She lives on inside of their souls, those incomplete and broken souls.  And now as time passes she understands the price that she must pay for this.  The completer is both a blessing and a curse.  For she feels their pain, their loss, their regret and vengeance each second of each day.  And it has changed her, slowly, one soul at a time.

Looking back she cannot see it, the moment it all changed, for it never happened all at once.  It just was, and is, and will be. (Forever and) Always.  She feels for them, instead of them, so they don't have to.

So maybe she's not broken, or empty, or lonely.  She feels all of this, all at once, and it is nearly incapacitating, overwhelming, heartbreaking.  And some days she wonders if she can go on, but she knows that she will.  Because this is her life, and this is her purpose, and if she was not this then really what would she be?

A 20-something girl that could have saved the world.

She will be the same person she has always been, or she will die trying.  Die happy and at peace knowing that she never gave up, not on herself, and not on the world.

Because everyone knows this world could use a bit of saving.

Some days are harder than others to keep going, to keep believing.  The thoughts are harder to shut down, the feelings are impossible to overcome.  Today was one of those days.  One of those days when everything was more real.  The pain that surrounded her was more intense, almost pulsing with its own heartbeat.  My body was so in tune with the universe and with others that I lost myself for a moment.  One moment.  And it all came crashing down.  She finds it hard to describe...and even harder to prove to herself why she should continue to try.

When the lies come full circle

Somewhere along the way she lost something that she cannot place.  She can feel the deep pang for this unknown thing, but she cannot identify it anymore than she can find it.  She has gained so much recently that it is unsettling how empty and alone she feels.  She has grown so much, and yet she does not know whether this growth is an accomplishment, or a curse.  She fears many things, and feels so much loss.  The ripples of her past are growing to be waves of regret, tsunamis of misunderstanding.

Looking back there are many events that led her to become the girl that she is now.  She has lost so much.  She finds it hard to believe that anything in her life can be consistent, that anyone would be willing to stay.  People always leave...and the wreckage they leave behind is nearly insurmountable.  She has picked up her own pieces so many times that she is sure she no longer resembles that girl that she used to be.  She is saddened to leave so many versions of herself behind.

And yet she is not.  That girl that she used to be, the many versions that have existed along the way, they were lost.  She does not remember a time in her life that she was not lost.  So as she stands on solid ground for the first time it is unfamiliar.  She does not trust the feeling that she will not fall.  But she is grounded by much more than she has ever experienced.

She has love.  Honest love.  But she is unsure if she can believe him.  He seems different, but then again didn't they all?  She knows that her past has marked her.  She is aware of the exact moments that have caused her to doubt this.  And there are moments, times when his eyes shift, or when his smile twists in just the right wrong way.  And she is taken right back, back to that moment.  She sees another's eyes, and she feels everything she thought she had let go of so long ago.

The truth is that it still hurts.  It might always hurt.  It may never change.  And as time goes on he is less accepting of the flaws.  He understood in the beginning, but he has reached a point where it is not an excuse anymore.  He will not accept that she is damaged anymore.  She is terrified, unsure.  She does not know what to do because she cannot change this.  She has tried so hard to leave that in her past, those feelings, that abuse.  But as she types this she knows she never will.

If we are honest he ruined her.  She will always hold on too tight.  She will always fall too hard.  She will always wonder.  Wonder if there is not a monster behind those beautiful eyes.  She does not have a problem loving, but she will never trust that those eyes will not quickly and quietly turn.  She may never believe that she is enough.  And she will never allow him deep enough inside her heart to crack it.  If she could, if he could look into that chamber, if he could see who she truly is, would he stay? 

When she was 18 she fell. Fell hard and fell fast, and surrendered everything she had inside of her heart and inside of her soul to a boy.  And for years she believed she had something that no one else could ever or would ever understand. She thought she was lucky, that they had that one in a million first love that would last forever.  And then he shed his lies, and he broke her. No wound compares to the scars that remain on her spirit.  Her wings are blackened, and they are tattered and they hold tight and protectively around the pieces of her heart that he left behind.

She lost so much more than a boy the day he walked away.  She lost direction and she lost faith, in herself and also in the world.  Years later she has not found her way back.  And she wonders if maybe she had her love.  She wonders if her epic love was wasted.  But more than anything she wonders if she will get another chance, if this is her chance and she is simply too broken to let him in.

He loves her. But he has never seen what she hides.  So life has come full circle and it is she that must shed her lies.  And she fears that look in his eyes when she breaks him just the same.

She has woken up from the haze and realized that she has run again.  Run out of reasons, and finally out of breath.  She blames the world for how she is feeling, believes that it has given up on her, ripped everything that was meaningful away.  And when she spins it that way it feels better.  It is still almost incapacitating when she forgets to fight it, but it feels better, better than it would if she were to tell the truth.

She was never good at truth.  She looks them in the eyes and she mirrors her two favorite deceptions...either the person they want her to be, or the person that puts that image to shame.  She is either everything you've ever wanted, or everything thing you wish she was not.  But what she guards most protectively is the truth. 

The truth that she's afraid of who she is.  Of where she's going, but mostly of what she has left behind.  She ran away from reality a long time ago and it was at a point in her life when it was easy.  He friends were growing up and moving away, and she stayed.  Stayed not because it was easy, but because it was the hardest choice she thought she could make.  To stay, when every fiber of her being wanted to run.  Run away from him, and tub away from life and everyone and everything that reminded her of him.  She stayed, but somehow she also still managed to run.

As she grows both up and also more in love with another each day she realizes just how far she has drifted from those she once was so close to.  So far that she is not sure how to get back, or if it even matters if she were to try.  But her heart hurts some days, knowing that she does not know them anymore, that she might not ever again know them the way she did.  And she is lonely, lonelier than she imagined was possible.

And it is getting much harder to lie.  It gets harder each day to smile.  To laugh.  Without also starting to cry... and her illusions fail her, for the first time.  But there is no one left to notice.

So I run, because it's really the only thing I've ever been good at, or felt comfortable with.  And maybe if I'm lucky I'll find something to bring me back.  You can never really go back, and the friends you had in high school aren't really your friends for life, but as I lay here I see their faces.  I hear the promises we made, and part of me still believes.  Part of me wonders if I wandered back to that swing set, or that pier if they might be waiting.  Smiling, ten years later.  Because friendship just changes meaning as we grow. It changes shape, and it gets much much harder, but it's always there.

Sometimes you just have to have faith and run in the right direction...

J-L

If running were a competition she'd hold the record

Her tears are dried now, her breathing has calmed.  She feels that pang in her chest still though, and her eyes sting with pain, with acknowledgment.  She knows, but refuses to believe it.  She knows that she is standing about a thousand paces ahead of where she should have known to turn around. To let go, again.  She wonders if maybe she wasn't built for a life with another. And the tears they fall anew.  Recognizing that she's sure. Sure that she's too broken to make it, but too wounded to make the journey back.  And she's caught in the same battle she loses every time.  She feels the overwhelming urge to run.  Run away from him and back to...back to what she's unsure.  Back to the boys that are as incapable of love, but also of hurting her? Back to the life that was okay for today and tomorrow and that's all that mattered? She knows that is not enough, but is also quite aware that she is unhappy with the place she has ended up again.  She's lost, and again she's alone.  He's all she has, but what if he's not enough?  What if no one ever will be?

She fears that she will always end up here, sad, alone, tired, and running before she has even gotten herself up off the ground.  Her lungs burn and her heart is being out of her chest.  She is unsure if she can quell the urge to flee.  The water it calls to her, as if all will be well if she returns to the shore.  To the only place that will ever be home to her.  This time he will not find her, he will not even know to look.  This girl grew up and moved on, but ten years later she reacts to sadness the same.  But no one that knew her then knows her now.  If she could drown this feeling she would.  But the only way she knows how could ruin everything.

and she so desperately wants to care, but she fears it will not matter until it is much too late and she has gone much too far. 

If only he knew it was time to save her, maybe she'd survive, maybe she'd want to.  Maybe she wouldn't still want to run...

To the boy with all the luck, from the girl that didn't believe in it

My heart hurts.  Deep pangs, to remind me of what I have lost, of what I have given up.  I cannot make this pretty today.  It is dark, and it is lonely, and I only have myself to blame.  We make choices everyday.  A thousand mindless and inconsequential choices, and within these there hides the few that matter.  The few that we needed to make with care, that were lost within the rest.  I should have seen it.  I never should have let him go.  I should have fought for him.  But I did not, I do not.  So I am to blame.

But I miss him.  I miss my best friend that somehow made the entire world make more sense.  Our relationship was all wrong and it was weird, but life is weird.  And we make it work.  So why can't we make it work?

I'm the girl that believes in the world, and he's the boy that relied solely upon luck.  So here I am hoping, wishing for luck.  Hoping that life is not this cruel.  Hoping that the world gives him back.  Please come back.