Arms

All the affection from all of my friends cannot make up for the lack of a pair of arms belonging to a loved one to wrap me up and hold me and take the world from me for just a moment.

That’s what’s been pushing me into the depths recently, I think. I know I am loved. I know I have amazing friends in my life. I have this creative life I’ve always dreamed of. Yet there is a hollowness, an emptiness that no one can fill.

When I walked out of my old life, I knew I would miss things and be lonely and it would be hard.

But I didn’t think it would be this hard.

He has someone. Has had someone for some time. And had a few someones before her. He is happy, I guess. Happy after I took so much from him and I don’t begrudge him that. I left partly because I knew he was so unhappy and I could not find his happy for him. Or for me. He has the ordinary life he craved and that I could not provide. He has arms to hold him and care for him and take him in.

All the friends, all the joy, all the beauty cannot make up for the lack of those arms. As beautiful as my life is, as full as it is, there is a space around me that dies for those arms to wrap me up.

Cute Boy is fine for now but there is someone else to whom his arms belong. I have no right to intrude on that. I live for those moments of hello and good-bye when his strong arms wrap me up and give me, for one millisecond, the feeling of being loved, of being held by someone who loves me. Then his arms are gone and he is gone and his arms envelope the other woman in his life. I hope she knows what she has in those arms as they are quite lovely arms (sorry, watching “Notting Hill” and my prose has suddenly become English).

I had thought the OOMA would be the one to wrap me up but he has since left me as well, standing alone, looking at his shadow, wondering where he has gone. When I do see him on the rare occasion, his arms are cautious and distant, holding me off, keeping me away. I miss the warmth of his embrace, his eyes, his smile. But they are also on to some other muse, someone who is filling his thoughts for the moment, whoever that may be.

I crave that – the moment of intimacy that is there in a loving embrace. You can’t fake that. You cannot duplicate or copy or mimic the arms of one who loves you.

I have yet to find another pair. And at times like these, I am the saddest because I am afraid I will never feel that seductive, comforting, indescribable warmth again.

I guess whoever I am waiting for – whoever God is holding on to for me – must be someone terribly special, terribly perfect, to keep me waiting this long.

I just hope he has good arms.