one step forward
four steps back
I sent this email tonight, and I’m not omitting his name. I don’t care.
I tried to get in touch with you when you said you were home and I felt like you blew me off, saying you’d call back.. and then you didn’t. Yes, I probably shouldn’t have drunk dialed you later that night. That was stupid on my part. But.. I said what I felt you should have heard - that I was really upset that you didn’t try to get back in touch with me. Then… I didn’t hear from you. At all.
And then I worried.
I worried for all of Sunday. And Monday. And Tuesday. How was I supposed to know if something happened to you? How was your family supposed to know? Were you okay? Were you just back underway? So I kept calling you, kept trying to get in touch with you, and so on, until around last Thursday, my worry turned into resentment and anger. Where were you? And why did you blow me off? And where are you now?
I still don’t know where you are. I still don’t know what you’re up to. But I’m still hurt. Unbelievably hurt… that I was just an afterthought.
I keep having dreams where I see you. On the beach, across the street, in the middle of a crowd, on a sidewalk. Every time I go to reach out and touch your arm, kiss your face, you turn to dust, sand. You disintegrate in front of me and I’m left, purse-lipped at the sky, grasping at nothing, dusty colors from the traces of you left on my fingertips. Then I wake up. Alone, panicking, in a cold sweat, my heart racing. You’re still gone. And I’m still not sleeping.
Here’s the thing. I feel so stupid for letting myself care. Because surprise, as soon as I felt like I could really trust that this could work out between us, you started fading. And soon enough, you were gone. At this point, it doesn’t matter where you are, because you’re gone.
I want to stop crying about this. About you. I’ve cried so many tears over you throughout so many years in my life. And I’ve been trying so hard to keep the tears back this time. But of course, I finally trusted you, I finally needed you, and I was finally ready to admit both of those things. But now you’re gone, like you’re a total figment of my imagination. One step forward, four steps back.
I can’t tell you how stupid I feel for this whole thing. Part of me wishes I never got in touch with you in the first place; I still would have had a doomed relationship. Instead, I had a doomed relationship, and then on top of it all, I let myself fall for you. Yep, you’re a thousand miles away, and let myself fall for you, trust you, fall in love with you in such a short amount of time.
Sometimes I wish I had kept you as a distant memory, something that I told my boyfriends about when they asked if I had ever been in love before, something that I used to twist my mouth into a thin-lipped smile and wring my hands about and explain sheepishly that it wasn’t really love, or whatever, maybe it had been, but it was in the past, and it was when I was a child and didn’t know any better, but it wasn’t even close to what I felt for them (because of course this all seemed like the right thing to say, but who really knows what’s right and wrong to say?). I guess I understand why your past is supposed to stay as your past, not your present, and certainly not as your future.
I needed you. I’ve needed you for the last several weeks, more than I’ve ever needed anyone. And yes, I get that your job keeps you away, but the one time you were back and I STILL needed you, you waved me away. I can’t tell you what I’ve gone through over the last several weeks; it’s as if one godawful thing has happened right after another. As soon as I think I’m at rock bottom and I admit, yes, I’m at rock bottom, I discover that I’m not quite there yet. And I keep sinking lower and lower. I still don’t know what rock bottom is.
I’m so alone, John, and I’m in such a dark place. I’m so tired of crying about this, about falling for you again, about the feeling I got when I read your two emails I received when I was in Maryland - that you were already growing distant. And now? Now, you’re gone. To where, I don’t know. And will you come back? That I don’t know either.
So this is the last time you’re going to hear from me. This is the last time that I’m going to reach out to you; this is my last feeble attempt to find out what is going on with you, where you are, and where we stand. Unless you’re the one to speak first, you and I won’t speak again. I can’t be this strong, keep convincing myself that you care. Quite frankly, I don’t feel like you do care, and it doesn’t matter if that rips to the core of you, because I’m already in a thousand shredded pieces. And hey, if it doesn’t affect you - congratulations. You’re stronger than I am. I would be envious of that.
As much as this is falling on empty ears, or whatever the stupid saying is.. I love you.
Goodbye.
You told me to let go of everything in my head as I tried to wrap my mind around the notion that this was real, this was finally happening, this was you and I and nothing else and yet it was everything, everything I ever wanted and needed. You held me - held my hand, held my hair, held my face in your hands, held my gaze. You told me that it was surreal for you, too. That I was back in your life, that I was in your arms, that I was in your bed. We fit together. Beautifully. Shoulder under outstretched arm, big spoon and little spoon, mouths, limbs, pegs and holes. It all seemed too perfect.
I dream about you - I see you across a street, tens of feet away from me in a crowd, on a beach. I approach you timidly and as soon as you turn to me and I touch you, you’re sand. You’re gone with the breeze, vanishing beneath my fingertips, becoming nothing more than a memory. I go to place my mouth on yours and I’m purse-lipped at the sky. You disappear as quickly as you appear.
You stood near the water’s edge with me as I kept moving. I drifted up and down the beach, always returning to your open hand, your smile, your squinting eyes in the sun. It wasn’t just my gypsy soul keeping me wandering; it was the fear of remaining next to you for too long. Being close to you made me want to be closer, more attached. It’s an idea I abhorred, feared, panicked at that the thought of. I didn’t want to stand too close. I didn’t want you to know what I was thinking, that I was still afraid of you, that I couldn’t trust you and that my uncertainty put me inching closer to hurtling into the crashing cold waves - just to say hello, you’re still alive, this is real, you don’t have to wake up, you don’t have to be afraid. Or should you be?
I dream of your sweat, your salt, your sex on my skin. I arch my back, cry out your name, and you’re gone as quickly as the dream had materialized. Pleasure becomes pain; I wake up to an empty bed and a cold sweat, and the knowledge that this is all truly in my head. I don’t know where you are in the world, but you’re haunting me in my dreams, and I can’t shake you. I can’t shake the memory of you, the idea of you, and I can’t shake the idea that you are gone from my life just as quickly as you entered it.
(Source: staypozitive)
hah. this is a good one. too bad the word is thrown around so casually.
(Source: staypozitive)