Mourning us

I don’t think I really mourned us. The loss of the entity that was us. I felt my broken heart for me but not for us.

Because us was something special at one time. We came together to build a life that was full of potential, full of possibility, full of future. There was a “we”. There was an “us”.

But that entity took over our individuality and us became something big and dark and heavy. The potential, the possibility, the future got stuck in the void as we lost ourselves into the expectation of what we should be. We folded ourselves into us and left ourselves behind.

And when it ended, I celebrated the death of us because us had become excruciatingly painful. Us was the entity that ate my soul. Us was something I couldn’t wait to no longer be a part of.

I didn’t see the corpse laying at my feet, battered and beaten and bleeding. I stepped over it and ignored it, pretending that my footprints weren’t left behind in the leftover viscera. I left that empty shell behind and never looked back.

Until tonight.

And finally, I am mourning.

I am mourning the loss of what we built. The loss of forever. The loss of the us that came to be.

I am mourning that there is nothing left between us but emptiness and hollowness and pain.

I am mourning that you are not here. And that I cannot let you be here. And that I can never let you be here again.

I am mourning that we won’t grow old together and see all of our imaginings come to fruition.

I am mourning the death of the love we once surely must have had. That barely a memory of that love has managed to survive. That it wasn’t enough to avoid this inevitable demise.

I am mourning the loss of you and the loss of me. That we gave so much to something that could not survive all the pressure, all the pain.

I am mourning that we didn’t stop long enough to try to avoid the end, that we didn’t see it, didn’t acknowledge it. That we just let it come and watched as the us that was us died.

I am mourning the loss of you because there is still a hole there where you should be. And it will never be filled.

There is nothing now to do but weep and pine and rend something to signify the loss. My heart has worn the rend for a long time but now it has surfaced and become real.

But from the mourning, maybe there can be healing. Maybe it will set me free and let me let us go. I can occasionally lay flowers on the grave. I can occasionally pause to acknowledge the loss. I can maybe finally put us behind me and truly move forward as only me.

You'd think I'd learn

I apparently don’t learn very easily.

I like to hang my heart out like a piñata and hand the current OOMA (object of my affection) a big honkin’ stick and just let them have at my heart with all their might. I get fooled into thinking that this time will be different, that maybe there’s something there, that maybe THIS ONE will be the one who won’t break it but, inevitably, they do.

In five and a half years of being on my own, you’d think I’d see the signs. They’re always the same.

Guy seems to dig me. Tells me how amazing I am. How talented I am. They stand thisclose and feel so near and so present. The connection is electric and literal sparks fly. This goes on for a while until there’s that moment - that one moment that makes me go, ooooo, here it is, we’re one step away from something wonderful and beautiful. And I hold out my heart, stopping just short of screaming from the top of the nearest building, “Here! Take it! I know you want to! Finally! Yay!” And I create beautiful rom-com scenarios of how it’s going to play out and how we’ll fall in love and how wonderful it’s going to be, because it’s right there. And I’m on top of the world for a day or a week or, this time, a month.

And then…

Nothing.

It’s gone. Suddenly. Without warning. I wait and hope and think, “Next time I see him, it’ll be magic. It’s finally going to be what I want it to be.”

And then…

Nothing.

Actually, worse than nothing.

It’s nice. It’s lovely. It’s friendly. Most people won’t even notice the change.

But I do.

And my heart does.

And tonight, my heart is kicking me in the shins for letting it get dragged around and fooled again. It’s pissed off at me for not seeing the signs and letting this one in. Being fooled by a brief moment of almost, fooled by language and words and this-close-so-close-but-not-quite-there-intimacy and one single night filled with potential that ended with hope, if not anything physical.

And my heart is wrapping itself up in steel and chains and barbed wire and a big fucking lock and hiding the key, refusing to tell me where it is. It’s warning me that if I do this again, it’s going to break for good and never be healed. It’s warning me that I’d better prepare for a long fallow period because it’s not coming out for anything - ever.

Because I have been stupid with it and it won’t let me be that stupid again.

Chasing (your name here)

Just finished watching “Chasing Amy” for the… I don’t know how many-eth time. One of my absolute favorite films and my absolute favorite Kevin Smith film. The dialog and the relationships are so honest and true. I think the brilliance of Kevin Smith is that underneath all the cussing and the in-your-face rude beats the true heart of human emotions. When he gets it right, he gets it so very right.

The last five minutes of the film rip my heart out and throw it on the floor and then back up again and drive back over it. Holden (Ben Affleck) comes to a comic book convention (he’s a comic book artist) to have closure on his relationship with his former partner (Jason Lee) and the woman he was -- and still is -- in love with, Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams). The conversation between Holden and Alyssa is so innocuous and nothing but watching Affleck and Adams just look at each other is heart rending. I think it’s one of the most under-rated performances Affleck has ever given. You can see how much these two want to be together, how much they regret their choices and how they have no choice but to move on and leave each other in the past. Crack - there goes my heart, breaking.

Because I’ve been there. Okay, I didn’t sleep with someone who was gay who decided to not be gay so they could be with me and then fuck up the relationship by suggesting a weird, twisted threesome. But that moment -- that moment with that person that you should have/could have/might have made something beautiful and perfect but somehow, you fucked it up and there’s no way to go back. And you both stand there, the moment hanging between you, the want, the need, the regret tangible as you talk about nothing. The desire to say, I love you, you changed me, you marked me for life. I will never forget you. I wish I could take you in my arms right now and that we could go back to before all of this. I wish… I want… I’m sorry.

But we never get to say that. We never get that perfect closure. It’s always held between you, with nothing and no way to ever close it. We just look, we just wish, we just let that breath, that moment hang… until it’s gone.

And you move through the door. You say, oh, that’s just some guy/girl I knew. And that’s it. Some person I knew. And the door closes and it’s gone.

And it makes me stop now, as I’m chasing again, and suddenly realize that it’s going to be the same thing that it’s always been. Chase, heart held out, crash, boom, bang. Door closing. That moment, that look, that breath filled with intent and thought but never expressed. Chasing (your name here)…

Some day I may figure out that chasing is a waste of time. There are those who cannot be caught.