When I met him, my life and myself were still forming. I would love to say that once I knew who I was, that I was strong and powerful in my own right. Incorrect. I was fourteen and I was young. I knew very little of myself. I learned differently through the years... differently than perhaps others had. I'm not sure if I learned slowly or very, very fast, but it seems different than how other people did it (which frankly isn't out of the ordinary for me).
Three months ago, approximately, I lost everything. And I hate to say that because I would love to think that I was strong and powerful in my own right. Incorrect. I was twenty and I was young. I spent three months crying. A hand-carved top brought with love from India; a half-empty, half-cold bed; notes ripped from the corner of a school notebook and passed covertly, then hidden for years in plain sight under my earring tree: these slowly killed me. They have powered remedial poetry like a locomotive, but no fiction comes from this kind of pain. Poetry can hide in the darkness of itself. Fiction requires you to say so much more than you ever wanted to.
Today, I realize I have not quite lost him. Not quite. I did lose so much, so very very much, but not him in his entirety. I'm still twenty, but so much changes in the course of a day when you're this young, and perhaps I am strong and powerful in my own right. This is work. This is a job, and I'm getting paid in gently receding heartache. Deleting the old love letters hurt, but I did not cry. I cried when I found them months ago, and I cried when I tortured myself and read them, wishing desperately for what had been. I could wish to have naturally green hair and a leprechaun to myself, but that's not going to happen and neither will wishing for what had been. And that's why I didn't cry when I deleted them. I was just throwing away the shells, the skeletons of something long past.
I'm still working very very hard to make myself alright. If my friendship suffers in the meantime, that's fine by me because this friendship wouldn't work anyway if I, a pivotal part of the thing, were not alright. I'd like to get it back to good working order, but I have to get myself there first. It is the worst emotional pain I can imagine to think of the two of them together, where I had been. Quietly under sheets. In the passenger seat going no where. A replacement. But that accomplishes nothing for me and I know that.
I am going to Spain in May. I'm going to work towards my career and I am going to continue to travel. At some point, I will move to Chicago or Denver or both. Marriage is not on the table for me any time soon. I have things I have to accomplish for myself, and if I go and get myself married, that's just one more thing I know I'll throw myself at wholeheartedly and there are other things I need to throw myself at first.
I will be okay. I will be strong and powerful in my own right. It just takes so much work.
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