December 10, 2013
I so wish I could talk to you sometimes. The real, quiet, contemplative you who somehow knew all the answers. Or maybe it�s not like that now. I�ve grown up. Perhaps I�ve caught up with you a bit and, perhaps, you cannot share anything that would be of use. And perhaps it wouldn�t matter anyway � for children are all different and we all do things differently ourselves. Any questions I might have may not even hold a glimpse of reality if you were to bestow an answer. Your kids are all grown up. Scary grown up. With piercings and jobs and attitudes and Facebook pages and opinions.Mine�s not quite there yet.
But still I wish sometimes that I could talk to the quiet, contemplative you. The you before you destroyed my faith and fervor. The you who listened and saw and waited and watched. The you who somehow knew where to go. Without direction, without an ounce of uncertainty, without a doubt.
Perhaps it�s just because I�d like to be back there right now for the feeling. I felt so much more then. I felt, around you, every day, the way I felt whenever I put on my roller skates when I was younger. Whatever � corny, yes � but I felt so alive, so accomplished, so exhilarated and bursting with energy. I could do anything and everything. I was sexy as all get out and could go all night long, running on fumes and the glow of your smile.
I don�t feel the same way now. And that makes me incredibly sad sometimes.
Now I�m too tired to stay up past 8pm and all my energy is expended on this little person who has taken over every aspect of my being. I�ve only started to read books again and write and take a minute for me and watch the sun rise from my spa room with silence surrounding me instead of a stack of dirty dishes.
Thinking of all this actually makes me more disappointed in you than it makes miss you, though. I miss the ME I was and the way I felt but you just bailed out on a big part of your responsibility as a father, a home owner and spouse. You owed a lot more to those in your life than you gave them because you couldn�t get off the damned fence and make up YOUR mind. How selfish. Maybe it was your time to be selfish, sure, but maybe you could have gone about it better. Because not only did you royally fuck with the loves of those you MADE, but you fucked with the lives of those you INVITED in. You were scared to let go, scared to move on, scared to take the bull by the horns and make it right. As a man should. And I didn�t know any better because I didn�t have a family to fight for until recently.
All I knew is that I loved you like I loved no one else.
And while that makes for a great little love story that I would like to successfully retell someday, it sure doesn�t make for a great reality.
You were kind of a chump, really. Racing and riding and drinking and staying late at �work.� While your kids had homework to finish and there were dishes to be cleaned, laundry to be put away, driveways to be plowed, bills to be managed.
Dumb.
You�re the reason I had such a skewed sense of reality because I thought it was all about love and longing and passion and kissing in the car behind American TV. But it�s more about �suck it up, sister,� you�ve got a job to do. Responsibility and chores and mouths to feed and hands to hold and security to make. SECURITY. What sense of security did you offer any of us for the sake of your confusion, your complacency, your whims?
Dumb.
Dumb that I would miss you or worry over your present state or concern myself so long with your life. Your life was YOUR life, not mine, not shared, not open for sincerity. What a stupid game. Yes, we both should have known better and, yes, I think we both realize we were idiots and, no, I�m not here to judge your specific set of special circumstances (well, perhaps a little) because that�s not for me to decide.
I think you�re a good man or else I wouldn�t have fallen for you but sometimes it boggles my mind how twisted we get in our feelings, emotions and desires. We think we know it all at that age and we state it boldly, never needing regrets to burden us with better judgment. I�m glad, for once, that I have regrets now. Or else I�d still be where I was. Sure I�m not quite where I want to be emotionally but that�s more chemical than situational. At least I have found a man who wants to share his life, love and pain and sorrow and wants to know more about my own life, love, pain and sorrow. I have a man who won�t back down or give up or walk away. Games are still fun if they�re games we both can play and both have a chance at winning.
We struggle, though. Sometimes every day. Like we are today. But both of us know, deep down, that we are stronger than any beckoning hands beyond our own foundation. Doesn�t mean we won�t fail � perhaps we will � but I doubt we�ll be able to do it as extraordinarily as you did.
I wouldn�t want to take a moment of it back. Mostly. Every inch of me is glad I got to know you, glad I realized our time together, sincerely grateful for our flames, jealous that cannot reach out any longer and for our little fight and our turn at living (because we sure did it in an amazing way, didn�t we?). But I cannot help but to be disappointed these days. Knowing what you were supposed to be despite yourself. It should have been better. It shouldn�t have hurt me so much that, ten years later, I still shed tears when a certain song hits the airwaves.
You teased me by making me feel so happy and so loved and so alive and adored and cherished but you KNEW you couldn�t commit to this. You knew it wasn�t right. Ten years my senior and you KNEW it. You knew this was just an interim sort of review. You knew this had �potential� only as far as you could throw me. And you threw me, alright, for about four years.
Despite whatever it is that I needed to expel this evening for whatever reason in the world, I wish you nothing but the absolute, very best. Nothing but well and wonderful. For I�ve made some pretty hefty mistakes too, yo, and I cannot hold myself responsible for them any longer as I know who I am and what I am doing NOW and it�s all right. I�m sure it�s all right and well and wonderful with you, too.
As it should be.
Just needed to get a little pissed off and recognize what it was that broke us down, bent us out of shape and secured our destiny in opposite directions. I surely wish we could be friends and that, occasionally, we could talk and reminisce and know of each other�s successes and failures and hurt and joy but, as has happened with me and a couple others, I cannot be that way and I understand. The nostalgic me wishes it could but the reality queen gets that it would be too messy and muddled.
I hope you understand I had to get mad. I have to get mad. I have to call a spade a spade and let it fall where it may. And it would not be so if I didn�t care much. But I did. And I do.
As I�m not afraid to admit it was and should be.