the time will come,
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
-derek walcott, nobel laureate (1992 literature)
could you sense the dejection in my "voice" over the last several months to fill the space in my self that r created when he left? did you sense that as he finally dropped away i found that i was stronger than i thought? nah, me neither. i really believed that this couldn't be done alone. i never suspected that it might be better alone. i thought i'd be living a reactionary existence forever, or at least a lot longer than this. i don't really know what changed. maybe it was just the passing of time.
the day that r left, the moment that his shoulder passed through the threshold of our home, i knew he wasn't coming back, ever. the six following months were a desperate attempt to convince myself that i had no real intuition and that i must some how be mistaken. notsomuch as it turns out.
i remember talking to austin a couple of months ago about the faith and trust (and stupidity?) that it takes to put yourself out there after you've had your heart broken. how do you do it? how do you ensure that it won't happen again? "you just do. you have to. and it might happen again. it probably will in fact. but you just try again." what? that's not great advice! what kind of crap is that? "you don't have a choice." *wahh, but i don't wanna.* damn you all to hell austin. but, hey, i guess everyone takes the same risks.
before i went out with b, i mean, way before, when i first began to consider that maybe i would eventually date, i thought that i'd serially date. ya know, play the field or something. that's what you're supposed to do right? *scratches head* i told myself the first night that we went out that i would be me (only in cuter jeans) and try and have a good time and hey, at the very least i'd have a nice sushi dinner. a part of me sort of hoped that conversation would be awkward or he'd have really bad b.o. or be really into breastfeeding women for some creepy/kinky reason. not to punish myself or anything, just to have a good "bad" date story (and ya know, not leave myself vulnerable, or something). something i could tell in my best britney spears' voice (ask anyone, i'm known for my fantastic impressions. not.):
oh my god ya'll, he asked if he could nurse. this goes down in history as the worst first date ever huh? i mean, can you believe the gall? he tried to grope me in the haunted house at the boardwalk. i guess there's other men out there. that's what i get for dating before my divorce is final! rebounds never work, eh?
or better yet, i killed it. but not in a good way.
i couldn't stop talking about my divorce. my kids. my cancer. the fact that i'm lactating but not menstruating. i was thinking the whole time: someone shut me up please. i told him i had diarrhea of the mouth. diarrhea. of the mouth. and just when i thought things couldn't get any worse...my breasts got all engorged and my milk let down and bled through my shirt and ran down my stomach so it looked like i had pissed myself, only up. OH. MY. GOD.
imagine my shock when it didn't play out like either scenario. and imagine my terror when that stupid intuition crap came into play again: this is someone i'll know for a long time. this is not where i planned to be. this is not where i wanted to be. this is where i am supposed to be. this is where i want to be. this is where i am. i mean this in the larger sense. that this experience of letting go and putting myself out there made some things click.
a broken heart isn't always a mortal wound.
you totally want to buy some of these...they're organic dark chocolate sweetened with agave nectar. crispy coconut on the outside and chewy yummy truffle-y decadent-ness on the inside.
extreme closeup.