The general rule of thumb is that for every 6 months you're in a relationship you get 3 months of wallowing/depression. That means that I should get a good a year in which I cannot be judged for my tears over the loss of "Doug". That's not good enough for me. My sadness only feels profound because its my own. It isn't any more or less important than that of anyone else and, frankly, I'm tired of luxuriating in it.
I'd rather be petty, shallow and pathetic than be bound to a man who'd rather lie to me and feel good about himself than accept that he's just as depthless and cruel as the people he despises.
The simple truth of the matter is, I would have moved the stars for him. I would have given up everything: My country, my ties here, my art, my whole life if only it meant that we had a future. It's the most tragic thing I've ever heard, because what does that say about me? It says that I'm so eager to find something spectacular that I see it in people who simply are not. He was like poetry... really bad poetry. The kind that makes you wince while you're reading it because it sounds so much like something you've read so many times before, and you can't connect to the words because it's all one big cliche.
I don't regret any of the time I spent with him; he was the instrument through which I learned a new melody. That does not, however, make our parting any less than what it is: something that was bound to happen one way or another.
I can't give so much of myself to people who do not and cannot appreciate it. Love, like death, is only best understood through hindsight, and nothing of beauty ever came from reactionary movements. Perhaps that's why my infamous "You Don't Know It" series has failed so many times over. I only ever write it when I'm reacting to the loss of one great love or another. It is only through quiet reflection and understanding that we can learn about ourselves and our loved ones... Even if our loved ones reside across an ocean and deep inside a Rock, without thought or feeling for what it was that they left behind.
I used to liken myself to an opal, something beautiful but fragile and easily cracked and crazed and made useless when exposed to too much wear and tear. That's still true, I think, but I'd also like to think that I'm not some pale, milky thing that must be kept hidden in darkness. I'd like to think that my beauty comes from some dazzling kaleidoscope, like the one I wear around my neck. My madness and my light and my quietness are all too easily misunderstood and too quickly misinterpreted for something else, so when it is time for us to part ways it is rarely with more than a nod and a smile.
I cannot be angry with him. I can't even think about him because thinking about him reminds me of that terrible weekend in which my grief overwhelmed my good sense and I prayed (for the first time since my father's hospitalization) that maybe he'd see something in me worth holding on to. My grief is what embarrasses me, not any lingering feelings of tenderness or even bitterness. It is my grief that makes me want to turn myself to stone and forget that there was ever any connection to us. It is my grief that makes me hate myself for believing him when he told me that he wanted to spend his whole life with me.
I can tell you with perfect clarity the moment at which I knew that I loved him above all others and with my whole heart. I wonder if he could tell you the same -- about anyone. I wonder if there's a single person living who can tell you what that moment was like for them. Some people go their whole lives without ever knowing it, I think. If you want to know, it's like a storm has settled, and whatever lightning or thunder you carried around before that point is suddenly dissipated, and you're seeing the sun for the first time. Its a swelling of the heart and spirit that makes your cheeks hurt from smiling too much.
That's what it was like for me the moment I knew that I wanted to spend my life with him. It was like tasting really good chocolate for the first time and knowing that I'd never forget that sudden sharp, almost bitter sweetness. And even though a huge part of me wants to forget that perfect moment that (I realize now) I was alone in, I don't think I ever will and I have to content myself with that.
These will be my last words on the subject. I will not trouble any of my faithful readers any longer with my horrific musings of a love that should have been forgotten the moment it was ended. Perhaps I am just sad because I found those old photos. Maybe I'm sad because I know he's got someone new. I'd like to think it's none of those, and that I'm sad because I can feel the grief ebbing away and if I don't even grieve what we used to have then there's really nothing left to say on the matter.
If two people break up and neither one even thinks about the other, and neither is even affected by the others absence, then does that mean the whole relationship never happened? And if that's true, then does that mean that the perfect moment I only just spoke of never happened? That it didn't mean anything? Not even to me?
Does it matter either way?
