The Real LJ Idol - Mini-Season - Week 12
The Real LJ Idol - Mini-Season - Week 12
This is my entry for Week 12 of LJ Idol (
therealljidol).
Prompt: "Just don't look."
Just don't look, I tell myself, but I look anyway. I cycle through your social media and, as expected, nothing has changed. It only takes a few quick keystrokes. My search bar history easily picks up your name and all the websites associated with it, auto-filling in the addresses for me. You haven't used your Instagram in two years. Your last activity on Facebook was changing your profile picture back in November to include the French flag overlay, followed a few days later by changing it back to the original photo. Your Twitter has been quiet since the summer and I hastily removed you from Skype weeks ago so there's no inside information to collect from there. You were never big on social media in the first place and all of you're accounts are just as stagnant as ever. All is quiet and empty and unchanged. The storm inside my heart rages on.
I play this game every few days, which, in all fairness, is an improvement over when I was playing it every few hours. I tell myself not to look; I try to talk myself down from the ledge, but my fingers betray me time and time again. It's so easy to fool ourselves when our minds are desperately grasping for even the most ridiculous of excuses. In the beginning, I convinced myself it was because I wanted to make sure you were okay. I wanted to make sure you hadn't done anything stupid. A mutual friend had tagged you in a post about a work event three weeks ago and I felt relieved, but unsatisfied. Once I knew you were going about your life, I couldn't justify my prying as something I was doing for your benefit. I couldn't pretend that I was simply looking out for you with no ulterior motive. Worse than that, it proved that you were able to carry on and that stung.
It's a hypocritical thought, of course, because I too have been carrying on and finding pockets of happiness and joy even in the shade of this ever present dark cloud. It would be unrealistic to expect you to just completely stop your daily routine or to shut yourself away from everyone and pause your entire life. That's not how it works. And, it doesn't mean that you can't be hurting too all the while. I should know because I'm doing it myself. I am going through the usual motions all while feeling very much unlike my usual self. I am proof that there is room for regret and turmoil and pain, but also friends and fun and normal activity. Knowing this should undoubtedly make me feel better, but it doesn't. You always wore your heart on your sleeve while mine was tucked carefully away behind years of walls. You were always more outspoken, more vulnerable, more willing to put your neck on the line to resolve things while I hid or shut down or cowered behind my stubborn pride. But, you're not coming forward now and I have to wonder if you've tired of being the one to walk out in front of the firing squad first.
Don't look, I tell myself, and it's getting easier to listen. It's not that my self discipline has improved or that I've finally started to care less, but rather that my curiosity has been replaced with anxiety. My brain has started to go into self-preservation mode and enough time has passed that I'm beginning to anticipate that the results of my searches will yield things that I'd rather not see. Because weeks ago, when I originally took on my role as Social Media Super Sleuth, I was hoping to find something, anything that might reveal a flicker of your feelings for me, but now I'm hoping that when I look things will still remain unchanged.
I wonder why we do this. Why we dance around like this, torturing ourselves and prolonging the moving on process when we logically know better. What is it about love and the subsequent loss of it that makes us act so irrationally? Why do we seek out things that only serve to hurts us more? Are we trying to rip off the band aid in one go? Are we trying to purposely touch the hot stove so that we aren't tempted to do it again? Are we doling out some kind of sick self punishment for letting things dissolve so unceremoniously? Do we get some kind of weird pleasure out of the pain? Out of justifying our tears and our hurt and that terrible twisting feeling in our gut?
I find myself swaying between two extremes on a regular basis. There is the prideful, angry side of me that resents you and the pain you've caused. This side loudly (and unconvincingly) shouts at the top of her lungs about how much she doesn't care and how much better off she is now. This side of me swears that even if you reached out right this minute, I'd ignore it and go on with my day. Then, there is the desperately sad version of me that keeps setting arbitrary ultimatums and goals. It takes 21 days to break a habit. I convince myself that somehow you too have heard this random fact (that very much relates to changing diets or quitting smoking and not at all to relationships) and I assure myself you'll understand the implications and contact me before then. You don't, of course, because this is a ridiculous assumption to make. A month, I tell myself. Surely, after a month you'll reach out. Four weeks pass and you don't, so I move the bar. We last spoke on January 28th so maybe you consider February 28th a month instead. That date comes and goes and so I move the bar yet again. I readjust the goal posts hoping against all hope that you'll make even the smallest attempt, meet even the tiniest of my expectations. I throw myself into anything and everything all while my brain plays a constant game of tug of war between thinking about you and thinking about anything but you. I spitefully convince myself that if I get a character to max level in a game we used to play together, you'll either come back or I'll be over it. Time will have passed. The state of things will have changed.
I constantly move between these two planes of being while my feelings get tossed and tumbled, switching between empowered and defeated all at a moments notice. I am simultaneously empty and also so incredibly full of words and thoughts and doubts and hurt that I fear I might suddenly burst.
That is not to rule out the middle ground I occasionally find myself resting on. Here, I can breathe for a moment and evaluate things from a more rational standpoint. I can remember that I am a smart, logical, well-educated adult who is acting very much like a heartbroken teenager. Absorbed in my melancholy, I realize that far too much damage has most likely been done. Whether this time apart has served to make you miss me or forget me, there is no going back. And, although I may be strangely loathe to admit it, I'm not as bad off as I was in the beginning and the stretches of time between looking or thinking or expecting are getting longer and easier. Accepting this, however, means accepting that you too may be feeling the same way and that thought, well... it makes it incredibly hard to breathe. Because we can laugh and smile and tell ourselves we're okay (and mean it!), but the smallest bud of hoping has rooted in our heart and it's just waiting for the chance to bloom and blossom into something much bigger. We're unsettled and folded awkwardly into the wrong shape and so everything feels strange and foreign. Ourselves, but also very much not.
This is what it is like to open our hearts and make a home there for someone else, someone whose feelings and actions and thoughts are out of our control. This is what it means to rely on someone's presence in our lives, knowing that they can tear themselves away at any moment. We are human and even our very best efforts can sometimes fall short. Was I not enough? Was I too weak? Too stubborn? Too harsh? Can I blame you, even just in a desperate attempt to lessen my own guilt? Have things truly ended like this? Can they end like this, with so little closure, so little explanation?
I can't bring myself to delete your number or our lengthy 2 year history of texts, but as your name gets buried under those who've sent more recent messages, I wonder if it's poignantly symbolic. Am I doing myself a disservice by leaving you there, letting other things pile on top of you, hiding you, but not getting rid of you? Can I heal if even a splinter of you stays lodged within my heart? Only time will reveal the truth.
Don't look, I tell myself, and today, I don't.
If you're on my friend's list and reading this and finding yourself alarmed, please note that this is a work of fiction, though based very much on past experiences. ♥
This is my entry for Week 12 of LJ Idol (
therealljidol).
Prompt: "Just don't look."
Just don't look, I tell myself, but I look anyway. I cycle through your social media and, as expected, nothing has changed. It only takes a few quick keystrokes. My search bar history easily picks up your name and all the websites associated with it, auto-filling in the addresses for me. You haven't used your Instagram in two years. Your last activity on Facebook was changing your profile picture back in November to include the French flag overlay, followed a few days later by changing it back to the original photo. Your Twitter has been quiet since the summer and I hastily removed you from Skype weeks ago so there's no inside information to collect from there. You were never big on social media in the first place and all of you're accounts are just as stagnant as ever. All is quiet and empty and unchanged. The storm inside my heart rages on.
I play this game every few days, which, in all fairness, is an improvement over when I was playing it every few hours. I tell myself not to look; I try to talk myself down from the ledge, but my fingers betray me time and time again. It's so easy to fool ourselves when our minds are desperately grasping for even the most ridiculous of excuses. In the beginning, I convinced myself it was because I wanted to make sure you were okay. I wanted to make sure you hadn't done anything stupid. A mutual friend had tagged you in a post about a work event three weeks ago and I felt relieved, but unsatisfied. Once I knew you were going about your life, I couldn't justify my prying as something I was doing for your benefit. I couldn't pretend that I was simply looking out for you with no ulterior motive. Worse than that, it proved that you were able to carry on and that stung.
It's a hypocritical thought, of course, because I too have been carrying on and finding pockets of happiness and joy even in the shade of this ever present dark cloud. It would be unrealistic to expect you to just completely stop your daily routine or to shut yourself away from everyone and pause your entire life. That's not how it works. And, it doesn't mean that you can't be hurting too all the while. I should know because I'm doing it myself. I am going through the usual motions all while feeling very much unlike my usual self. I am proof that there is room for regret and turmoil and pain, but also friends and fun and normal activity. Knowing this should undoubtedly make me feel better, but it doesn't. You always wore your heart on your sleeve while mine was tucked carefully away behind years of walls. You were always more outspoken, more vulnerable, more willing to put your neck on the line to resolve things while I hid or shut down or cowered behind my stubborn pride. But, you're not coming forward now and I have to wonder if you've tired of being the one to walk out in front of the firing squad first.
Don't look, I tell myself, and it's getting easier to listen. It's not that my self discipline has improved or that I've finally started to care less, but rather that my curiosity has been replaced with anxiety. My brain has started to go into self-preservation mode and enough time has passed that I'm beginning to anticipate that the results of my searches will yield things that I'd rather not see. Because weeks ago, when I originally took on my role as Social Media Super Sleuth, I was hoping to find something, anything that might reveal a flicker of your feelings for me, but now I'm hoping that when I look things will still remain unchanged.
I wonder why we do this. Why we dance around like this, torturing ourselves and prolonging the moving on process when we logically know better. What is it about love and the subsequent loss of it that makes us act so irrationally? Why do we seek out things that only serve to hurts us more? Are we trying to rip off the band aid in one go? Are we trying to purposely touch the hot stove so that we aren't tempted to do it again? Are we doling out some kind of sick self punishment for letting things dissolve so unceremoniously? Do we get some kind of weird pleasure out of the pain? Out of justifying our tears and our hurt and that terrible twisting feeling in our gut?
I find myself swaying between two extremes on a regular basis. There is the prideful, angry side of me that resents you and the pain you've caused. This side loudly (and unconvincingly) shouts at the top of her lungs about how much she doesn't care and how much better off she is now. This side of me swears that even if you reached out right this minute, I'd ignore it and go on with my day. Then, there is the desperately sad version of me that keeps setting arbitrary ultimatums and goals. It takes 21 days to break a habit. I convince myself that somehow you too have heard this random fact (that very much relates to changing diets or quitting smoking and not at all to relationships) and I assure myself you'll understand the implications and contact me before then. You don't, of course, because this is a ridiculous assumption to make. A month, I tell myself. Surely, after a month you'll reach out. Four weeks pass and you don't, so I move the bar. We last spoke on January 28th so maybe you consider February 28th a month instead. That date comes and goes and so I move the bar yet again. I readjust the goal posts hoping against all hope that you'll make even the smallest attempt, meet even the tiniest of my expectations. I throw myself into anything and everything all while my brain plays a constant game of tug of war between thinking about you and thinking about anything but you. I spitefully convince myself that if I get a character to max level in a game we used to play together, you'll either come back or I'll be over it. Time will have passed. The state of things will have changed.
I constantly move between these two planes of being while my feelings get tossed and tumbled, switching between empowered and defeated all at a moments notice. I am simultaneously empty and also so incredibly full of words and thoughts and doubts and hurt that I fear I might suddenly burst.
That is not to rule out the middle ground I occasionally find myself resting on. Here, I can breathe for a moment and evaluate things from a more rational standpoint. I can remember that I am a smart, logical, well-educated adult who is acting very much like a heartbroken teenager. Absorbed in my melancholy, I realize that far too much damage has most likely been done. Whether this time apart has served to make you miss me or forget me, there is no going back. And, although I may be strangely loathe to admit it, I'm not as bad off as I was in the beginning and the stretches of time between looking or thinking or expecting are getting longer and easier. Accepting this, however, means accepting that you too may be feeling the same way and that thought, well... it makes it incredibly hard to breathe. Because we can laugh and smile and tell ourselves we're okay (and mean it!), but the smallest bud of hoping has rooted in our heart and it's just waiting for the chance to bloom and blossom into something much bigger. We're unsettled and folded awkwardly into the wrong shape and so everything feels strange and foreign. Ourselves, but also very much not.
This is what it is like to open our hearts and make a home there for someone else, someone whose feelings and actions and thoughts are out of our control. This is what it means to rely on someone's presence in our lives, knowing that they can tear themselves away at any moment. We are human and even our very best efforts can sometimes fall short. Was I not enough? Was I too weak? Too stubborn? Too harsh? Can I blame you, even just in a desperate attempt to lessen my own guilt? Have things truly ended like this? Can they end like this, with so little closure, so little explanation?
I can't bring myself to delete your number or our lengthy 2 year history of texts, but as your name gets buried under those who've sent more recent messages, I wonder if it's poignantly symbolic. Am I doing myself a disservice by leaving you there, letting other things pile on top of you, hiding you, but not getting rid of you? Can I heal if even a splinter of you stays lodged within my heart? Only time will reveal the truth.
Don't look, I tell myself, and today, I don't.
If you're on my friend's list and reading this and finding yourself alarmed, please note that this is a work of fiction, though based very much on past experiences. ♥