So... I don't really understand why I keep posting my thoughts about "us" and what we were and what could never be. It's not like you're going to read them... But the thoughts are still going through my mind, and the dreams are still haunting me. And there's new ones... They are drilled into my head. It's not like the faint ghost mist that you can only capture in pictures, or a faint voice on a tape recorder that you can't hear with the naked ear... It's like your there. Right there. Following me... And sometimes I'm hunting for the evidence of what we were. I can feel you holding me and wrapping your arms around me... Sometimes it feels like this past week's episode of Grey's Anatomy. (which I'm still not so sure about, by the way...)
I go through pictures and old e-mails, and wrack my brain to try to figure out what happened and what went wrong and why we don't talk anymore. How we could be so strong one moment, and then never speak again. An e-mail out of the blue, a response to a message that I've sent you months before... Sometimes I've heard you actually reading the words to me off the screen... But sometimes, I can't hear your voice at all... They are words of a total stranger.
That drowning feeling comes back every once in a while. I can't tell if it's this little baby girl pressing on my lungs and squirming around inside of me, or if it's the memories that randomly come back. Dreams that replay in my head.... But again, it's like I try to take a breath and instead take water into my lungs. Then the water starts to leak out of my eyes... but I stop. And tell myself no. I tell myself, that the person I knew doesn't exist anymore. And people keep telling me to take you off of that gold plated pedestal that I've put you on the past few years. That you weren't always so good to me, and at times you were worst than the worst boyfriends I've ever had. And it's true. But good things happened between us as well... I've come to see the reasons I should take you down off that pedestal. But most of all, I see the reasons I've kept you up there, and why things haven't been able to work with anyone else yet.
I've compared the end of "us" to hurricanes, car crashes, drowning, and a number of other disasters... I've compared you to a ghost. And honestly, some part of you may haunt me for the rest of my life.
Every time you decided to end things, there was no warning. You would just stop talking to me. There would be a dramatic letter or e-mail, all of which I still have for whatever reason... and then silence from your end. Or no message at all. We were just done in your eyes. Talking about getting married one day, and then no response the next... Darkness. A whirlwind of emotion running through me... torture.
I talk to many people today that ask why we aren't together anymore, because we were so perfect for each other. And, as always, I would try to find out what I possibly did wrong. How I could have chased you away. Because I talked to you about being scared? Because I talked to you about my emotions? I didn't do anything wrong. It ended up not working because you didn't want it to. Because of things that someone else drilled into your head, because you were terrified of what would happen next. And you kept telling me that I was holding you back, when really, I pushed you to be who you wanted to be and do the things you wanted to do. Or so I thought. But I don't think you even knew what you wanted.
I did my best not to hold you back. I believe the reality was, that you were holding yourself back and just trying to use me as an excuse. And I will not settle for that. Never blame anyone else for your shortcomings. Never use me as an excuse for anything again. It's not my fault you didn't do your homework, that you didn't turn something in, or that you didn't go camping or whatever more often. I had nothing to do with that. You need to take responsibility for your own life... we all do.
And with the good things... I don't think anyone else has ever been able to hold me like you did. They haven't been able to give me "the look"... And it wasn't just how you looked at me. It's what I knew was behind each look. Behind your eyes, I knew you were thinking about how much you loved me and how you couldn't be without me. I knew when you would start to question things... I knew when you were stressed. I knew when you weren't okay, no matter how many times you said you were. There were simple things that you did that reminded me constantly that you loved me. Little notes written if you left before I got home, e-mails when you were too far away, the little jokes that we had. And waking up next to you after being totally intertwined in your arms for an entire night... It's the emotion I haven't been able to find anywhere. The intimacy that has been almost impossible to find since, is what I found with only you. The way you talked to me, the way you treated me... When things were good with us they were really good. I could tell you had respect for me and that you cared about me just by how you acted around me.
We had a lot of really good memories... And some really bad ones. But I want to always remember the good if I have to think about it all. I've learned a lot of lessons over the years... I have tried to love like that again, and it's so much harder the second time around. It's never seemed intense enough for me. Am I looking for something that doesn't exist? Are my standards too high? No one else has just seemed to fit with me like you once did... and I'm not looking for another "you" by any means.
Which brings me to a dream that I had a few nights ago... We were in the living room of your dad's old house. The one where we fell in love and spent hours laying in the hammock in the back yard... and the house I brought a box of your things to when we broke up... Anyway. I was sitting in that huge once white chair, the one that had the armrests almost totally ripped off. Your dad's bike was wrapped up the way you wrapped it our first pretend Christmas together. You went into his room and grabbed a bag, much like the silver one that contained green and white tissue paper and a little red box. But in this dream, the bag had a long wooden box... It looked as thought it was made out of drift wood. When I opened it, there was a key inside. And old skeleton key, with a heart for a handle, and all kinds of complicated notches at the end, and it was decorated with sea shells. I ask if it was to your heart or mine, and you said I already knew the answer... and you were gone. I sat in that chair, holding the key in my hands with my palms up, staring at it. I noted how heavy the key was, and Kings of Leon began to play... Which was really my alarm waking me up. But it was with you that I heard them for the first time... and I only recently began to listen to them again. They've been my favorite band since I first heard them, but now I can finally listen to them with out breaking down.
So I'm guessing that this was supposed to be you giving me back the key to my heart, literally and figuratively. And it's something I need to hold on to for a while. I'm not going to just give it to anyone. And I don't even know if I totally have it back yet. Like I've said before... It's not a good time for me to focus on love. It's time to focus one me and this little baby, and our future. And I fully intend on doing just that. If someone comes a long, then they do. But I'm not looking anymore. I guess it's true what they say... "When you know, you know." So far, I've known that I haven't found the right guy for me yet. And Mr. Right isn't in my life at all right now. Weather I've met him once before, or still haven't even seen his face. But he's there. Somewhere.
I need someone that makes me feel close to the same way, someone that respects me, someone that listens to my kind of music and understands the way I dance. I need someone to understand me. And accept me and all my flaws. Because flaws are what can make a person truly beautiful.
My dad has this lady he's been seeing since the divorce. It happens to be this woman who was in love with him since before he met my mother, but he didn't know about it. And now they are finally together, after over 40 years. They are so much better together than I ever imagined him with my mom. They enjoy the same things, and understand each other. They totally understand each other's dance moves. They accept each other's flaws. They fit. But it took so damn long for my dad to see it. I went to dinner at his house Monday night, and he showed me this picture he has... It's of them, the day he graduated college. And he has it next to a picture of them now. Just imagine how life would be different if he picked her instead.... I firmly believe that things happen for a reason. Maybe not everything, but the decisions we make now can lead to almost anything. If I left in March when shit hit the fan in Florida, I probably wouldn't be pregnant right now. But for some reason i chose to stay.
I don't want to wait that long to be with someone that really gets me... But I would rather be alone than be with the wrong person. I know that someone is out there for me. It's just not the right time. And once I find that person, maybe the ghost of you will finally leave me alone. I need to stop looking through the things that remind me of you. I need to get you out of my head a focus on me.
I'm glad you're happy now. Or at least I think you are. I haven't heard otherwise. But maybe, one day, we will be together again... Maybe it will be like my dad and his girlfriend. Maybe we won't ever see each other again. But right now I'm just planning life for two... and there is no guy involved. Unless he can prove to be worthy of the seashell skeleton key. And it's going to take a lot for me to give it away, if it's even mine to give.
And so begins the process of hopefully moving on... finally. Maybe it's just the time of year that drills these thoughts into my head...
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