Being in love with the same person for over a decade is pathetic. No no, it's great when the feeling is mutual between both parties, but when all the feelings of ardor bears its burden on just one person's shoulders, that person is an idiot. Wait, no. A pathetic idiot. I should know. I'm speaking (present tense) from experience.
It has been almost a year since I have felt that incomparable momentary glimmer of immeasurable, consummate happiness and the very abrupt, subsequent consuming pain of loss and heartbreak. It's strange that something so instantaneous and fleeting could cause such an emotional catastrophe, but then again one small scream can cause an avalanche. One benign lit cigarette can burn down Southern California. Let's just say that "The One Who Shall Not Be Named" (not Voldermort) is the mostly smoked but still lit Camel Light that collided with the parched tinder of my soul.
A little bit of back story: I met "The One Who Shall Not Be Named" (TOWSNBN) over a decade ago. I was a girl experiencing her year of *sweet sixteen* when I first saw him. Surely, a girl of such an age believes in pretty things such as love at first sight and soul mates. Whether or not these things exist, it's safe to say that I was instantaneously taken with him and my later encounters with him would prove my assumptions correct that this young man was extraordinary.
Up until that time in my life, I was a very good girl: No drinking, no drugs, no ping ping in my hoo haa. I was always on honor roll, an all star cheerleader and homecoming queen. To me the world was in a box and bad was bad and good was good and no gray shall ever emerge. You might as well have put a bow on my head and called me Pollyanna. Granted I was still of a dirty mind and had a mouth on me, but not to the extent of the person I am today... that's a story for another time though.
TOWSNBN was the extraordinary force that tore my world asunder. This was quite possibly the most beautifully chaotic time in my life. Oddly enough, to achieve such a feat he didn't have to do anything really. He simply just needed to exist. Being in his presence was a moving experience. His eloquence, confidence and charisma were unmatched to any I had met before. I felt stimulated in ways that I never could imagine being stimulated. To me he was art, cinema, literature, philosophy, ideas and ideals. He was everything I never knew I wanted, yet everything I used to subconsciously push away. He was the earthquake that caused the tsunami which destroyed my world's pretty box beyond economic repair; the lightning that turned sand into glass. He indirectly changed my philosophy of life where nothing but questions and a voracious thirst for understanding remained. All of a sudden there was color in the world as if another spectrum of light became salient to my eyes. He didn't do any of this on purpose. It wasn't his fault really. But he did it.
We were never romantic for all this time up until a year ago. The timing was never right. That may as well be the underlying premise to the romantic portion of our ongoing story. Well, that and I'm quite sure he could never love me. But I digress. The first time I had met him we were physically in each others' presence for a little over a year. After that time, geography had always kept us apart. But it wasn't only geography that separated us. He had built a wall around himself. It was as if he had fashioned for himself his own personal fortress of solitude pushing everyone and all honest emotion away. Ironically this was probably what drew most people in. Although he encapsulated himself in his impenetrable bubble, he was still warm and charming. Try imagining something impossibly beautiful and refreshing... something most necessary in a time of need yet untouchable. That was him.
So, fast forward to April of 2009. It was as if the universe had cleared its hectic schedule for a couple weeks within this month to allow us to come together and experience each other in more intimate ways than before. The first week was beautiful. I describe it as dreamy reverb, orchids and Pablo Neruda.... it was rainy sunshine and shadows of leaves. It was art and cinema, literature and philosophy. Whatever poetic bullshit imagery you can come up with, that's what it was like. He said wonderful things that I have waited over 10 years to hear... things I couldn't quite bring myself to believe were true, but I allowed myself to revel in the moment. Everything was wonderful, but he had to leave when the week came to its end. This was okay though, as he would come back later for another week. But it wasn't okay. The week he came back was the bizzaro reflection of his previous visit. What was going on? The warmth and kind words were gone... he was physically with me, but emotionally checked out. This marked the beginning of the emotional heartbreak roller coaster which I would ride for the next full year. Excuses were given as to why we couldn't be together, which in honesty are all very plausible, but the only thing that could make sense is that he just plain didn't want me.
So it's almost a year later... and having applied many of the home remedies for heart maladies which are described in a previous post, I could say that I am still on my way to recovery. I'm not quite 100% whole, but a whole lot less broken than at the time of the previous post.
Credits: Shout out to my boy Nick Borrelli as I stole the idea of "The One Who Shall Not Be Named" as a reference to the *C U next Tuesday* that crushed your heart under their heel like a mostly smoked yet still lit Camel Light.
