I think I am crying harder than I've ever cried in my entire life. My heart, barely held together by duct tape, has once again been broken.
I was waxing nostalgic with my sister, Kim, and we were looking up old friends on Facebook. Old besties, old loves, old enemies (I confess to secretly hoping some of them had turned out more hideous than I had).
She had found an old BF and I was telling her about the great love of my life. The one that got away. The barometer by which all other men were and are measured. The one whose old love letters I still get out and read occasionally when I want to slip out of this crippled body and be 17 again.
As I was cruising his About section, I came upon a word that has done all the damage this evening. Separated. The last time we spoke, he was happily married 21 years. The time we spoke before that, he was single and I was very married. The lack of synchronicity has me mourning the 'might have beens.'
What really has me troubled the most is the way I couldn't breathe when I read that awful word. In one second, I was elated. Over the moon. Out of my head with the giddiness I thought I had managed to squeeze out of me after the last failed relationship. I say last because there are too many of them to count. And when every single one of them left me decimated, it was this boy I thought of. Every time. It was him.
My joy was abbreviated by the realization that this good man--this really, truly good man, was now separated. A hideous thing that is. Separation. Especially if you have been, or felt you have been, one with someone. It's like having a limb amputated and you wake up with the phantom pain that resides in a place once inhabited by your heart. I don't wish that pain on anyone, most of all him. He is, as I have stated, a very, very good man. He is involved in service to his community, Boy Scouting, and other good works.
The remainder of my pain comes from the knowledge that I could never, ever contact him again. The reasons are too vast and complicated to go into. But there it is. Opportunities slightly left of center were missed. Damage is done. And I will be mourning until I am over it. Godspeed, D.E.V.L. the first, from your Puppet. This is for you!
I was waxing nostalgic with my sister, Kim, and we were looking up old friends on Facebook. Old besties, old loves, old enemies (I confess to secretly hoping some of them had turned out more hideous than I had).
She had found an old BF and I was telling her about the great love of my life. The one that got away. The barometer by which all other men were and are measured. The one whose old love letters I still get out and read occasionally when I want to slip out of this crippled body and be 17 again.
As I was cruising his About section, I came upon a word that has done all the damage this evening. Separated. The last time we spoke, he was happily married 21 years. The time we spoke before that, he was single and I was very married. The lack of synchronicity has me mourning the 'might have beens.'
What really has me troubled the most is the way I couldn't breathe when I read that awful word. In one second, I was elated. Over the moon. Out of my head with the giddiness I thought I had managed to squeeze out of me after the last failed relationship. I say last because there are too many of them to count. And when every single one of them left me decimated, it was this boy I thought of. Every time. It was him.
My joy was abbreviated by the realization that this good man--this really, truly good man, was now separated. A hideous thing that is. Separation. Especially if you have been, or felt you have been, one with someone. It's like having a limb amputated and you wake up with the phantom pain that resides in a place once inhabited by your heart. I don't wish that pain on anyone, most of all him. He is, as I have stated, a very, very good man. He is involved in service to his community, Boy Scouting, and other good works.
The remainder of my pain comes from the knowledge that I could never, ever contact him again. The reasons are too vast and complicated to go into. But there it is. Opportunities slightly left of center were missed. Damage is done. And I will be mourning until I am over it. Godspeed, D.E.V.L. the first, from your Puppet. This is for you!