Category Archives: Step 6

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When Time Turns the Tables

After the serendipitous meeting with Mr. Fire a few weeks before I graduated, where he confirmed my existence actually did mean something to him, he told me he’d let me know when he was in New York. He knew I’d be there and if he could help it, so would he.

Several years later, it looks like he finally made the move. Or at least for a job interview, that is.

Though it has been quite some time since I’ve laid eyes on the dude and I’m not interested in sprouting any new chapters with him – as I headed toward sushi for two on Wednesday, my mind couldn’t help but race.

After all, this was an evening, a moment, an opportunity I had dreamt of since the day he ended things far quicker than I thought he would. Following the late-Spring breakup in our college’s commons, I collapsed into my bed, equal parts shocked and desperately sad. A few hours later, with my puffy face and tired eyes and spirit, my roommate tried to console me, and though I’m pretty sure we both knew there was no magic phrase or surprising sentence that could alleviate my tears, something she said inspired me to move forward with a little hope: “It doesn’t seem like you guys finished anything. There are all these questions – he’s gotta have them too. I promise you, years from now, you’ll get the answers and you’ll see him again. By then, you’ll probably be happy and won’t care.”

I disagreed in that moment – how could I ever care less than I did then? How would this feeling ever leave or lessen? But maybe, if we were meant to cross paths again – say on Park Avenue South – it’d all make sense. Perhaps he felt just as broken as I did.

Come to find out, we both coined each other as the “one who got away” or the guy/gal who we’ll always wonder what could have been or what we should have experienced, but were too young to take a shot at. Since the split, we’ve never managed to be single at the same time. There’s always been someone else in the mix, another component to complicate any prospect of attempting to finish what we started or give another round to cards we laid many years ago. And up until that night, a part of me, even if it was just the tiniest sliver of silver-lining I had– I thought maybe, we’d end up together. That while I can’t be convinced I believe in fate in its indefinite definition, I do have faith in time.

And my love, my darling, time can do a gal many wonderful splendors in terms of love.

Walking to meet Mr. Fire, heels and lace-mini prepared to stun – I thought how my roommate was right. Here I was, living in the place I knew I’d end up, strutting toward my past, and other than a few butterflies, I was calm. And while I think there will always be questions left unanswered, love left unfinished, and ends left untied – it didn’t matter too much.

Because time, in its unpredictable ways, took me from lusting after this idealistic notion that Mr. Fire and I were destined, to realizing I didn’t want him anymore. In the seasons that had cycled, the tides that turned, and the feet that landed me in this city – I had changed.

And he hadn’t.

Sitting across from him, listening to him ramble and flush a sweet color of pink – I remembered the facial expressions I had adored, the gestures, and the stories I had fallen for. I still found him incredibly attractive – but had he always had that deep Southern accent that I was lucky enough to escape (Thanks Dad, from New Jersey)? I still found myself laughing at his comics, but that intelligent, witty conversation that I value in a man – does he have that? And yes, he was tall, but that stagger, that thirst to drink more than necessary – will he ever outgrow those silly habits?

Perhaps time can divide lovers for years and then bring them back together in some sort of romantic-comedy approved manner – but it also can make you see how wrong someone is for you. How while you loved them – or at least the idea of what they could be – when people grow, either together or separated, they end up in different versions of destiny than what they originally hoped. And perhaps, that ending is better than the happy one we once planned for ourselves.

Even if he was – or maybe always will be – the one who slipped through my fingers and pushed away the love I was willing to give him. Maybe the ones who do leave before we expect them too, were always meant to walk before closure could be granted, before reasoning and discussions could be completed. In some sort of twisted hand of Father Time, they are the ones who make us realize down the road, that what we think will happen, what we hope will come to be, who the people we can’t imagine living without – aren’t always what’s best for us. Or at least the us we become in this continuous progression we call life.

Sometimes, time makes you see that you love the you you’ve become more than the man who was. Or the we that was supposed to be. That while minutes or hours or days or even years may pass by so slowly -all that was, all that is, and all that will be, will work itself out, somehow, someday, along the way.

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That Un-Loving Feeling

It was right before dawn. I could hear the birds beginning the same sweet chorus, in the same little tune, they sing to wake up each new day. The sun was peeking into the darkened room, creating stripes of honey gold across my bare arms, and enticing my eyes to greet the inviting embrace of the great outside.

Though the gradual energy of the morning sought to spring me into a tomorrow I hadn’t experienced yet, its warm simplicity didn’t interest me. I was still in the day before – or so I felt – after spending the night restless, uncomfortable, and battling thoughts I couldn’t admit to thinking. Thoughts that threatened to change what I felt was a very important part of my existence.

Even if this something was obnoxiously snoring and possibly drooling down my back. The same back that turned away from him at the end of the night, feeling emotionally broken, undesirable, and still full of anger from yet another explosive fight. In an effort to win back some of his pride and my opinion of his honor – he had wrapped himself around my body, pressing down on me with his weight, and hiding his face in my curly locks. He wanted me to feel protected, loved, and to know that he cared about me.

But all I felt was suffocated. And confused. Bitterly sad. Every bone in my body, as achy as they were from not getting the rest they deserve, wanted to spree from his arms secured around my stomach. Yet, my body was like my heart – so heavy, so hesitant, so highly conflicted, I couldn’t even turn away from the sun glaring down at me. Or wipe away the steady stream of tears trickling its way down my cheek, as I prayed he wouldn’t hear my muffled sniffles.

Hadn’t I wanted this relationship? Hadn’t I fought for it endlessly? Hadn’t I fallen in love with this man, with this person, with this 6’4″ tall drink of water, who seemed to be everything I wanted? Hadn’t I introduced him to my family, to my friends, to those parts of my soul that a few rare gems ever know? Hadn’t I agreed to be his and desired his commitments to me? Hadn’t I longed for him, for this smell, for his presence in my life, for his laughter to fill the heart wounds I was still healing?

Flooded with questions and cheeks flushed with the rush of a clarity I didn’t want to accept, I rolled over to face him. He grumbled, as he always did, to let me know it wasn’t time to get out of bed yet. I agreed with him silently and placed my fingertips on the side of his two-day four o’clock shadow and around the perimeter of his lips. He squeezed my side and pulled me closer, recognizing that I was awake and admiring him. I placed my hand along the back of his neck and nibbled his chin, as we playfully always did to one another. With his blue eyes still hiding under their lids, he gave me a sweet sleep grin, and whispered in a voice that’s just between lovers: I love you, Linds.

And in my head, I thought, “But I don’t love you. Not anymore.”

In the weeks before Mr. Idea and I parted ways, we stopped sharing love and started sharing sentiments no two people should ever say – especially ones who are supposed to be in love with one another. We knew exactly which words would dig the deepest, cut the sharpest, and last the longest. We were not so much in a battle with each other, but placed with the difficult challenge of defending our own egos, which at the time had reached godly-like stature. We couldn’t agree on anything – from what to eat for dinner to how often we had sex. We both were looking for an excuse to be the one to walk away, be the one to pull the rug out from the other person, and send them crashing into the same emotional distraught we were feeling.

Yet, after each argument, each hateful feature that spewed from his speech or mine, he always apologized. He never took responsibility, but of any weapon of mass destruction I had against him, the one that was the strongest were my tears. And those, during the end of our relationship, fell daily. And nightly.

As much as we were not getting along and as awful as our exchanges were – the person I was really battling was not Mr. Idea. It was myself. I couldn’t believe after all the time it took to finally get over Mr. Fire, to put my heart back out in the line of love again – I found myself in the same situation I experienced with Mr. Faithful.

I had fallen out of love.

I had lost my interest. I had lost that love and found that un-loving feeling. The red flags I could let slide at the beginning became too bright, too impending that if I chose to ignore them, I’d be deciding to lower my standards. What had made me ga-ga over him in the first few months had suddenly became the same qualities that made my stomach churn. I didn’t crave him. I didn’t want to make love with him. I didn’t want to touch him. I didn’t see a future with him that was happy. But I could see a tomorrow beyond the mountaintops that was beautiful and full of promise.

That vision, however, for as far as I could see, didn’t include waking up to snoring and drooling, with a man who as much as he could have tried, would have never been what I wanted.

So many times in the past, when I was lonely or hating the single title I had been sentenced to, I feared I’d never fall in love again. I’d never feel that undeniable something that you can only feel from the splendor of someone you’re crazy about. That silly rush of emotion and passion that tell us, “Yes, this could be something.” Now, I don’t question that I’ll one day meet someone who will give me all the right feelings in all the right places – but I fear how sustainable that love is.

To hell with falling in love, what about falling out of it? Is it possible – or dare I say, reasonable – to love the same person, the same way, and with the same velocity as you did from square one? I don’t think so. I think like self-love, like that relationship that will always need developing – romantic love, in its best and most everlasting form, needs to be honest about the waves of change. We can’t, after all, avoid them.

Maybe there aren’t any perfect loves, perfect people, or perfect ways of staying in or leaving a relationship. Maybe falling out of love is just as much part of the game as falling into it. And maybe, just maybe, the best thing we can ever do is admit and accept that someone isn’t right for us. Even if at one point, we swore they were Mr. Right. Even if that means we have to hit the road again, alone. Prepared for another go, another expedition to the dating trenches – another shot at finding a person that won’t only remain by our side, but we’ll want them there, too.