Locket
Most people don't really know this. In fact I doubt that even Evan knows about this though he might.
When I was working in Redmond is when it started. I would work at nights and for some reason it was the first time in my life when I started wondering if I would run into someone I knew. I never have expected people to recognize me if they see me but for some reason out in that little store, working in the evenings the thought just kept coming into my mind. I remember one night this couple walked by the front of the store and it was in my peripheral vision that I saw his face and recognized him. Of coarse it was far too fast but from then I couldn't stop doing it. I kept imaging what he would have looked like by then. It became this whole thing, I could walk through the mall, a concert, a used car lot and everywhere I would go I would look for him. It wasn't looking for him I suppose, It was just keeping my eyes open in case he was there. I am horrible with facial memory but I kept having this feeling that I could run into him, somewhere unexpected, somewhere far from my home, that he would just be there. And, in fact, my dreams would occasionally echo that sentiment with the two us running into each other at a playground, an airport, a classroom. I would always tell just from his aura. Just this general feeling, impression. I am so bad with recognizing people and I would't be able to accurately picture his hair, his eyes. I might be able to pick up his voice but it's hard to say anymore. But somehow, his energy, his presence, I would meet up with him again because it just didn't seem real that I would go my entire life without seeing Fred again.
Well, now it's started with Evan. Too often to talk about which is why I haven't. I get a phone call from a wrong number and I am hypnotized thinking maybe it was him, maybe he was calling me from his new place, from his parents', from his sister's. It never is.
A part of me wants to go through with this radical acceptance thing. I want to just admit that it is over and go on. I want to get to the point where I don't look, where I have accepted it and I don't ever expect or hope or want to be married, or loved. That would be peace.
I had a conversation recently where the person I was talking with proclaimed that Evan and I were even. It would have been impossible to know how I would have taken this but it hurt a lot. I have spent ten months in hell paying for my sin and for his, he was punished with happiness. He was punished with having someone love him, loving someone, living with someone. I was punished with the worst hell you could dream, torture like I would never wish upon a soul and yet... we're even.
It was more than that though. It was the idea that it has been more than ten months since Evan broke up with me. More than ten months. I have spent every day thinking of him. There has yet to be a single night that I have not thought about him as I was lying in bed. I can thinking of a single minute alone in my room when I was dealing with the thoughts about him. Not a single wish... no stars, no beautiful sunset, no peak at the ocean. I took down all the pictures in my house and refuse to open iPhoto on my computer because it still has Italy pictures. I wont wear my necklace and you wouldn't believe the number of things I have stopped doing because, because they're Evan. Little things. I made David turn off the movie he was watching because it reminded me too much of Evan. I don't eat bruchetta. I wont drive on a certain street. I don't wear certain clothes. Haven't played my favorite board game. Haven't picked up a deck of cards. Yea, that much. If people only knew... But ten months... in ten months there is not more than one hour when I am not at work that I don't think of him.
But for Evan, it's a bit different right? It has been ten months. Those months have been rather different from mine. For Evan, in ten months he has met the love of his life, finished his degree, and spent every day happier and happier. In ten months he has more than moved on. He can't even remember me. I have no place in his thoughts, in his life.
Daniel emailed him. It was one of the nicest things he has ever done. If you remember David emailed him a while ago as well. Evan has decided to ignore all of them. It's as thought you thought you had graduated from college but the university rings you to say that they have somehow misplaced your calculus final from three years ago, it is not a problem, you can just come in and retake the test and no worries. But, you've moved past this. You used to do calculus every single day, it used to take a huge commitment of your time. You would think about it and study it and were proud when you understood it. And you know that there are other people that still have to deal with it everyday but for you, your life doesn't include that anymore, you haven't thought if it in years and you really have no desire to go back.
So here I am. Ten months later and for all purposes I am nomadic. I have nearly fully isolated myself. I have no returned emails, text messages, phone calls, facebook notes, letters, Christmas cards. I feel stuck here in this existence, I'd rather not be active in it.
By the way, no more hiding. You want access it's yours. Old password. Too bad you'll never check. My therapist tells me that it is crazy how you jumped into everything with her. How I am supposed to do "check the facts" and realize that I don't KNOW you are happier with her. But I do. You moved in with her. You're still living with her.
The other day Daniel tore up a business card in front of me and perhaps Evan and Fred are the only ones who'd understand but I lost it. I was devastated. It's ok he put him back together. Daniel says I don't understand or believe in things that are not directly in front of me, that I can't imagine how it was. It's because how could "how it was" ever matter when this is how it is. All for nothing. All for loss, for sadness, for fear, terror, and loneliness. I don't want anyone to feel that way ever.
In therapy they tell us all of these skills to get us through the moment, till the urges pass. I asked in group how the other people convince themselves to do those things. No one really go what I was saying. Finally one of the facilitators said I just had to look at my pros and cons. Problem is mine add up the wrong way. Everyone keeps telling me to just give it time and things will get better for me. It's not that things are bad. I wish people would understand that.
It's that all of my hope and all of life are locked away. Locked up in this beautiful, ornate, archaic relic. This ornament that I alone carry but can't open or ever look at again. I am trapped looking at the world that has been sealed off from me. It's not that I my life is, it's that my life has been locked away and i am outside of it.
When I was working in Redmond is when it started. I would work at nights and for some reason it was the first time in my life when I started wondering if I would run into someone I knew. I never have expected people to recognize me if they see me but for some reason out in that little store, working in the evenings the thought just kept coming into my mind. I remember one night this couple walked by the front of the store and it was in my peripheral vision that I saw his face and recognized him. Of coarse it was far too fast but from then I couldn't stop doing it. I kept imaging what he would have looked like by then. It became this whole thing, I could walk through the mall, a concert, a used car lot and everywhere I would go I would look for him. It wasn't looking for him I suppose, It was just keeping my eyes open in case he was there. I am horrible with facial memory but I kept having this feeling that I could run into him, somewhere unexpected, somewhere far from my home, that he would just be there. And, in fact, my dreams would occasionally echo that sentiment with the two us running into each other at a playground, an airport, a classroom. I would always tell just from his aura. Just this general feeling, impression. I am so bad with recognizing people and I would't be able to accurately picture his hair, his eyes. I might be able to pick up his voice but it's hard to say anymore. But somehow, his energy, his presence, I would meet up with him again because it just didn't seem real that I would go my entire life without seeing Fred again.
Well, now it's started with Evan. Too often to talk about which is why I haven't. I get a phone call from a wrong number and I am hypnotized thinking maybe it was him, maybe he was calling me from his new place, from his parents', from his sister's. It never is.
A part of me wants to go through with this radical acceptance thing. I want to just admit that it is over and go on. I want to get to the point where I don't look, where I have accepted it and I don't ever expect or hope or want to be married, or loved. That would be peace.
I had a conversation recently where the person I was talking with proclaimed that Evan and I were even. It would have been impossible to know how I would have taken this but it hurt a lot. I have spent ten months in hell paying for my sin and for his, he was punished with happiness. He was punished with having someone love him, loving someone, living with someone. I was punished with the worst hell you could dream, torture like I would never wish upon a soul and yet... we're even.
It was more than that though. It was the idea that it has been more than ten months since Evan broke up with me. More than ten months. I have spent every day thinking of him. There has yet to be a single night that I have not thought about him as I was lying in bed. I can thinking of a single minute alone in my room when I was dealing with the thoughts about him. Not a single wish... no stars, no beautiful sunset, no peak at the ocean. I took down all the pictures in my house and refuse to open iPhoto on my computer because it still has Italy pictures. I wont wear my necklace and you wouldn't believe the number of things I have stopped doing because, because they're Evan. Little things. I made David turn off the movie he was watching because it reminded me too much of Evan. I don't eat bruchetta. I wont drive on a certain street. I don't wear certain clothes. Haven't played my favorite board game. Haven't picked up a deck of cards. Yea, that much. If people only knew... But ten months... in ten months there is not more than one hour when I am not at work that I don't think of him.
But for Evan, it's a bit different right? It has been ten months. Those months have been rather different from mine. For Evan, in ten months he has met the love of his life, finished his degree, and spent every day happier and happier. In ten months he has more than moved on. He can't even remember me. I have no place in his thoughts, in his life.
Daniel emailed him. It was one of the nicest things he has ever done. If you remember David emailed him a while ago as well. Evan has decided to ignore all of them. It's as thought you thought you had graduated from college but the university rings you to say that they have somehow misplaced your calculus final from three years ago, it is not a problem, you can just come in and retake the test and no worries. But, you've moved past this. You used to do calculus every single day, it used to take a huge commitment of your time. You would think about it and study it and were proud when you understood it. And you know that there are other people that still have to deal with it everyday but for you, your life doesn't include that anymore, you haven't thought if it in years and you really have no desire to go back.
So here I am. Ten months later and for all purposes I am nomadic. I have nearly fully isolated myself. I have no returned emails, text messages, phone calls, facebook notes, letters, Christmas cards. I feel stuck here in this existence, I'd rather not be active in it.
By the way, no more hiding. You want access it's yours. Old password. Too bad you'll never check. My therapist tells me that it is crazy how you jumped into everything with her. How I am supposed to do "check the facts" and realize that I don't KNOW you are happier with her. But I do. You moved in with her. You're still living with her.
The other day Daniel tore up a business card in front of me and perhaps Evan and Fred are the only ones who'd understand but I lost it. I was devastated. It's ok he put him back together. Daniel says I don't understand or believe in things that are not directly in front of me, that I can't imagine how it was. It's because how could "how it was" ever matter when this is how it is. All for nothing. All for loss, for sadness, for fear, terror, and loneliness. I don't want anyone to feel that way ever.
In therapy they tell us all of these skills to get us through the moment, till the urges pass. I asked in group how the other people convince themselves to do those things. No one really go what I was saying. Finally one of the facilitators said I just had to look at my pros and cons. Problem is mine add up the wrong way. Everyone keeps telling me to just give it time and things will get better for me. It's not that things are bad. I wish people would understand that.
It's that all of my hope and all of life are locked away. Locked up in this beautiful, ornate, archaic relic. This ornament that I alone carry but can't open or ever look at again. I am trapped looking at the world that has been sealed off from me. It's not that I my life is, it's that my life has been locked away and i am outside of it.