mysecretspacelove-blog

[mysecretspacelove-blog]

I feel so afraid. I don't want J to break my heart by deciding he doesn't want to do this anymore, but I know I shouldn't try to manipulate the situation. I feel scared of how vulnerable it feels to care so much.

I'm thinking back on all the years that have passed, and it all feels like endlessly long and a fog at the same time. So much time has passed.

I know one day, I'll feel like this time went by in a flash. I think I just want to capture that this period of time has had so many highs as we've reconnected as well as some lows of anxiety and worry. It's a strange thing to be on this rollercoaster. My thoughts can quickly move in either direction, and everything I'm thinking just feels so real in the moment.

While I'm sure I'll (at least in part) look back on this time period and feel some joy as I remember it, it also is difficult feeling this vulnerable, heart open, ready. Ready and not at the same time, but okay with being in the "not" when I'm in it. And by that, I just mean that, for example, if J were to text me and ask to meet up this weekend, I would feel so fucking nervous (definitely a lot of that nervous "flight" energy). But I would go.

[mysecretspacelove-blog]

So much has changed since I said There is still time.

Two days later, J reached out to me.

I can feel J and me finding our way back. Back together but not. I don't know if we will be in a relationship again, but I can be in the unknown right now. And as much as I want to be in a relationship with him again, I like this unknown we're in. As we share notes we've written to each other on Google Docs, copied and pasted into text messages, I feel him inviting me into his mind. I want to know anything he wants to tell me.

We talked on the phone for three and a half hours the other night. I smiled the entire time. I will catch myself remembering snippets of the conversation, but then I also am shocked at how much I've already forgotten in just a few days. (Of course it's not realistic to expect to remember three and a half hours' worth of talking, but I just don't want any of it to slip away.) It was the strangest thing to hear his voice. My words got all jumbled up and I said something like, "I'm -- I'm sorry, it's just -- does my voice sound the same to you? Because your voice sounds the same to me, and this is just so weird." And he laughed and said my voice did sound the same and that yes, it is very weird.

But after that, and even during that, it was just like finding your way back to walking with someone. It was easy. We laughed a lot.

He told me twice that he really enjoyed talking with me. I think he said that he would like to talk to me again soon, but I feel like I blacked out a little during that part, so I'm not sure if he actually did. (I think he did.) I know I said that I would love to talk to him again soon, whatever he was open to or comfortable with. He said that he appreciated that.

I love talking with him. I love seeing his name pop up on my phone. I simultaneously have a part of me that feels afraid or worried to look at his texts because every outreach right now feels delicate, like at any moment he could decide to walk away and that I could be finding out right then and there. I have to continually check in with those parts of me that feel vulnerable and remind them that they're safe, that I'm here, and that I can bear the weight of anything I need to, should my heart get broken. But vulnerability and courage are the only ways through this.

[mysecretspacelove-blog]

Here is another thing I know:

There is still time.

[mysecretspacelove-blog]

Rereading my old words brings me back home to myself, but not without heartache. Running across that old picture of me stopped my scrolling. It's my face, but time has since taken away some of the plumpness that was in my cheeks at 25, plumpness I wouldn't have even seen at 25. Still me, but less worn, less lived. I never noticed the days changing me, bit by bit, as I looked in the mirror each morning and night. The same can be said for how, drip by drip, I let myself be emotionally drained for the last nine years of my life by him. Nearly a decade, and all for what? I reread things I posted about Phil, about Joel, about George, about David, about Josiah, about Sam, about someone I won't name just in case he can read this, and I start to cry as I realize all that I gave up in choosing to stay with him. I never felt deeply loved and seen by him. I never felt that drive to write about my life experiences because they were so deeply uninspiring, because I didn't actually like them. I abandoned that part of myself because trying to write when you've built up walls and protective parts that guard your heart from your most vulnerable Truth Teller self is impossible unless you want to stop living unchanged. Unless you want to change. I did want to, but the barriers must have felt too fucking high, and some part of me hasn't yet forgiven myself for not doing anything I could to break them down and save my own life. How could I have done this to myself when I had the wisdom in me back then? When I actually really did seem to have so much figured out, especially after leaving Phil. I had cultivated the wisdom to know what kind of person I wanted to love and be loved by, how I wanted to feel as I moved, step by step, through life. I believed in everything I wrote. Why did I give up that connection to my truth and knowing to compromise on my literal, actual, potent life? What will these nine years cost me in the end? I feel like I woke up from a dream and have discovered that the path I walked down took me somewhere I didn't want to go, and don't want to be, and here I am.

I have to remember this feeling -- the despair at realizing what you've done. It would be the biggest fucking shame to go through all of this trauma and self-abandonment just to not grow into a more whole version of myself as a result. I want to be the kind of me who would have walked away in September 2016. The kind of me who would leave because she knows magic is real, and magic is not with him. I've never been more afraid to die, but at the same time, I have never been more acutely aware of how goddamn precious life is. I thought I knew before, and I feel pretty confident I'll look back at this some day and think to myself, I can't believe I thought I actually knew enough to write about life's preciousness at 37. I know there is more soul-crushing loss to come, and more youth to slip through my fingers, and more steps taken that walk me closer to the end of this human road. If I'm lucky I gave this relationship ten percent of my life. Ten percent of my fucking life energy, and possibly more. As angry as I am for everything that happened, I could not be more goddamn grateful that he ended things. I hope I'm kind to myself in that future. Future me reading this, can you go easy on me, cut me a little slack? It feels fucking true here too.

So, really, how did I do this to myself? Why did I abandon myself the way that I did? I can create lists and psychoanalyze all the parts of my psyche, but my heart isn't ready to stop asking those questions, even if I can name all the reasons one by one.

[mysecretspacelove-blog]

You ask me if it’s too late for us to go back, if we’ve crossed “the point of no return.”

You make me laugh. From the first time I saw your eyes, your smile, from 2,600 miles away, I knew. I tried to pretend like I didn’t, tried to quiet the whispers of my hopeful heart so that it would temper itself with what my mind tried to tell it was realism.

Apparently, though, 15 days is all the time it takes to (ever so gently) make the mind shut the fuck up with its worries, its warnings, and just let the world be, carefree like the breeze through my window as you kiss me on the day that both of my parents said that they can hear the peace in my voice.

[mysecretspacelove-blog]

I love the look on your face when you smile and say, "Keep talking."

The steadfastness in your eyes when you say, "I like listening to you."

[mysecretspacelove-blog]

Is there anyone else quite like you?

I don't think so. 

You give me the notion of freedom in the palm of your hand. You inspire me. You surprise me.