Filed under: Uncategorized
Looking at things that remind me of you, it hurts.
I cant stop my heart from hurting. I miss you. I had you and then you left again and now I miss you and every day that you are gone I feel us slipping away from eachother, making cosmic distance, and I cannot stop it from happening.
I dont know why I thought things would change. Its odd, I saw you for 3 weeks, and then we came back to the US together and still, I thought things would change. When did I know things were the same?
The night you left. I knew it when I pulled out of your driveway but for sure it was plastered in black and white on my walls that evening. Maybe something happened, or nothing happened, but my life reverted to the way it was when I left, I did not cry and though I could still smell you on my skin I did not have that… need? for you. I did not wait for your call bcs I knew it would never come. I got a “Morning Sunshine!” txt the next morning and then didnt hear from you again. I was not angry but sad. Had I been angry it would have meant that I felt that you had done something wrong, when in truth I was sad that this was my mistake and mine alone.
I hate the way I let you stand infront of everything, you block out the very sun, and then just when I have written off the very thing I wanted, that is when you turn tail and run. It is frustrating. You are frustrating. THIS is frustrating. This has gone on for far too long, I know this, but Im held prisoner to my inability to make any of the requisite changes. I was happy before I left for Europe. Maybe things were nto perfect but they were at least good. Then I get an eMail from you basically forcing me to come to meet you in Prague or never talk to you again… what was I supposed to do? We both know I would -and did- risk life and limb to come see you. And yet, I almost didnt come. I almost didnt get on that plane. I almost decided to stay here. Yes, in many way that would have been settling, but in some ways comign to see you was a form of settling as well. Damned if you do, damned if you dont.
I wish I knew what the hell was going on but once again Im beginning to let this go. Yes, Im frustrated and a bit sad, but in the end Im ok with it. This has just been one very long and destroying good bye.
I still smell you on my skin.
You left hours ago, we hugged good bye, standing in the snow I looked into your sometimes blue sometimes green eyes and I smiled. It was cold, we held on not knowing when we would be able to touch again, and you told me you loved me. I told you I loved you. And then we each got in our individual cars, started them up, smiled behind the windscreens, we might have waved once, maybe twice, and then you drove one way and I drove the other. I would have watched you in the rear view mirror but I was having trouble getting up the hill, the snow making it difficult to steer or get traction, and when I glanced back you were gone. Our separation complete. Vacation over.
We had spent the morning tangled in sheets and limbs, you laughed when I told you about this or that and I wanted to commit that sound to memory, I wanted to play it all back later, when I was alone. And then I realized that you were still all over me, the scent of your skin is on my forearm, my shoulder, my tummy. I have been home for hours, needing to shower but Im resisting, how can I wash you away?
I am hating all the plans I have made. I want to curl up around you and fall asleep, but instead I need to get my ass in gear and get back to the life I was living before you, without you, indifferent of the wish and wash of you and I. I have friends to see and smiles to paint on my face, lies to spill around me and laughter to sop it all up with. I have a life without you again and I hate it.
Leaving your house today I worried that somehow we would never be back there, like it was a final chapter or a slight righting of certain wrongs, and I was scared at how easily I have come to let you go. I hate that sometimes I feel like you suck me in just to spit me back out. But then, I tend to do that too. Just not to you. Not yet at least.
It has been forever since I smelled skin like that.
I had changed clothes after stepping off the plane, messed one last time with my hair and walked through the terminal doors. What brought me to be there, in a foreign country, it was a tense situation. Gauntlets thrown, a choice of reaching back to something that I once needed so desperately or pulling away and heading towards something unknown, something that was safe and comfortable. I was way too far from home, in need of a shower, and walking my gigantic bag towards Utah.
I made excuses to leave, after weeks of the YES/NO sea-sawing I put my foot down, I was risking it. I was throwing caution to the wind and leaving. And there he was to meet me at the airport, my ex, the pain I have had to survive, the light of my life, the love I lost, the anger I let get the best of me. There he was in his jacket and smile, and I, like a child, walked towards his open arms and was lost.
We both needed to know, we were both standing in the way of everything else, even if we didnt intend to be. Sure, there would always be unfinished emotions between us, but could we make it? The grand gesture was nice but what came before it… well, what came before it was a grotesque show of just how cruel a person could be. And I suppose that was what did it. All the eMailing came to a head and I said NO, I was done, I needed to never hear from him again, I had reached my end; finally. All i had done was lay my cards out on the table, I had told him that I could not go along with his plans. I had been so scared to tell him what I was feelign and the second I did he lashed out, told me things that I didnt need to know, and I thanked him. I had been wondering just when I was going to reach my end and I was so glad he had cleared that up for me. Communication ended. Or, so I thought.
I get an eMail containing directions, ticket numbers, a wire of a thousand dollars, all to be used at my discretion. I could go and meet him in Prague, or not. It was “come to me or fuck off” and that is what I wrestled with for weeks. To go or not. On one hand he was a prick, he broke me over and over again, I never knew quite where I stood with him and invariably wherever I decided I wanted to be was wrong. On the other hand, he had quit his job in Iraq after my last eMail, he was coming home, we loved each other, no matter the pain we have always loved. ::sigh:: So, I got my passport and still I wrestled. Id like to say that my ole’ man was a huge consideration but he was not, this thing proving once again to be bigger than anything it comes into contact with, and that is why I was in a car, zipping through side streets, looking in eyes that I once held with reverence and I was confidant. I was, for a while at least.
The problem with all consuming love is that it destroys all around it and one must adjust to life living in an inferno. One must also learn to hold ones breath for an ungodly amount of time just to survive. That first night in the flat in the middle of Old Town, I held all the cards. I was all kings and queens and jacks, aces and spades and even an Old Maid thrown in for good measure. He shed tears after we kissed the first time, he held onto me the way one clings to a dying dream, and I ate up every last second of it. Vindication. You asshole, this is what you could have lost.
Sinners
We had lazy days of wandering the city, conversations that were painful, long moments of silence that seemed to tear the very soul out of my chest, but in between that we allowed our self to enjoy each others company, we held hands, we kissed, we closed our eyes at the mere touch of the others hand. This is what we could have lost. So we extended teh travel plans. What was supposed to be 6 days of soul searching turned out to be an entire month of country hopping. It could have gone wrong at any moment I suppose, there were vital seconds where it could have taken a dive but we stepped away from the ledge and headed the other way. We cried in each others arms and we laughed the night away in tiny hotel rooms. I have my best friend back. Every day I was more and more thankful for that but as the nights faded to day I began giving away my cards, slowly, unknowingly. Suddenly I had nothing, I was bare and feeling insecure again. I needed a reality check so once we reached Germany I grabbed the phone and called a friend who I grew up with. I had spent weeks talking to no one but Utah and sitting in the hallway of a friends house whispering angry words into her VoIP phone I began to slowly feel like myself again. Later that night the boys went go cart riding and Liz and I headed out to walk around, eventually finding ourselves at a dimly lit Italian restaurant where we shared a bottle of wine and bared the darkest parts of our hearts.
The last few days in Germany were slow and sad. Reality was seeping back in and we were making plans to head back to teh States. He would kiss my face in the morning, run his hands through my hair and blink at me. And so Tuesday we said our goodbyes at the airport and rushed to make the last flights. We made it, back to the US, back to the car rental place, back to the front door of his house in Denver, … and then I paused. THis was the last place we were together before he deployed. This is the house that caused so much pain right after he left and strained every relationship I had back then. This house brought that all back. But it was late, too late to be worrying abotu such things, so we tip-toed through the hallways and crawled into the bed that began it all, and there we made love before falling into a deep sleep.
I have not told my soon-to-be-not ole’ man that Im back in the States, selfishly Im avoiding any confrontation until Utah flys back to his family’s house tomorrow. On this trip I have done a lot of thinking about what I want and what I dont. I want to re-marry. I want kids. I dont want to be with someone who smokes. I dont want to be with someone who drinks all the friggin time. I want to settle down and not live in a party day in and day out. I want a real life. I dont want to be someones everything. I want to be someones someone.
It is snowing out and Im missing Utah, who is at the post office. Im missing the scent of his skin and the touch of his lips. I suppose it should be no surprise that this comes back around. I suppose it has been no surprise to find that it never really left.
