Unforeseen

Unforeseen

The greatest hurt…

That I am no longer allowed to tell you, I love you.

2024/02/27

No Undo, No Do Overs

2024/02/18

Life is not like a software program, it also is not a game.  There is no Undo button, and Do Overs.

I have fought my way through andropause, the midlife crisis.  I am now on the downhill slope, the inevitability of mortality squarely in front of me.  They say you should not have any regrets.  I cannot help feeling that I do have one major regret, though I also know I do not.

On one hand, I regret leaving her.  I have returned to my former self.  Life is calmer.  I understand I need space to recharge my social batteries.  I now know what it would take to live with someone and keep peace with her, and myself.  I have not found a companion, perhaps because everyone is gauged against my ex, but mostly because my introversion makes meeting people extremely difficult.  The chance that another Elizabeth, full of cheer and exuberance, will plunk herself down beside me is very unlikely.  Lightening does strike more than once in the same place but only at the highest points, not in the lowest valleys.

I regret that I let go of that love.  I have learned what we had was indeed love, the way we all think it should be.  Feelings so deep they cling to you with an unshakeable static.

On the other hand, in a frightfully human and dissonant way, I also do not regret leaving her.  I left for the right reason.  I have calmed down, my hormones settled and my former self lives anew, but I am still not the right person for her.  I am still that cowboy in jeans who enjoys box lunches, and she is still that princess in flowing gowns who enjoys high tea.

Some would argue, ‘Learn new things.  Take a chance.  Go get you some.’  Though I must recognize, it has been many years.  While I have surfed the rough waters of my own self, she has also climbed her own mountain.  My love for her has not faded, but what of her love?  Though she has sent small kindnesses my way, she has every right to be bitter.  If not bitter, totally void.  Early on, she asked me to respect boundaries, which I have.  That is why Santa is a bit secret.  I have learned that many people survive breakups by executing clean cuts – no hatred, no malice; the other person simply becomes all but nonexistent.

It would be rude and inappropriate for me to ‘take a chance’, as I respect the boundaries, and I am still the wrong person for her.  But I will never let go of the love.

Sun-Shower

Every day you sparkle into my thoughts like a sun-shower, bright beams of light with a sprinkle of rain.

Fortunately, my love for you is greater than the heartbreak of not being with you.

2024/02/21

It Happened Again

Originally Written and Posted June 28, 2012, edited in 2024

It happened again.

Time heals all wounds, they say . . .

I have grown more comfortable in my own skin then I have felt for a very long time.  With comfort comes a certain beige banality. Hermitage has a homogeneity.  I would not say that it lacks stimulation, but the emotions are soft.  The highs aren’t so high, the lows not so low, and there are very few turns in the road.  It isn’t bad really.  It is serviceable, comfortable, and safe.  I rather like it that way, but it does come at a cost.  Yin and Yang eternally strapped to the seesaw.

It happened again.  Like most nights, when I laid down last night, I sent out my thoughts.  There is no god, but there is an energy and I send my thoughts out into it.  I wish Alex well, and Dad, and Kim.  I think of Mom.  And I think of Elizabeth.  I hope that she is well and all right, and happy. Like most nights, my mind worked, drifting from thought to thought, examining an issue here, and reflecting on a resolution there.  And then the blackness absorbed me.

Being a night-owl hops your life around the clock.  During the mid-morning hours, when most are starting to feel the weight of the day, I usually still lie prone.  Often this is when the dreams are deepest. This morning was no exception.  It started simply.  I was unpacking something, a tiny trinket – a small teapot and high-heeled shoe on a miniature platform, all porcelain and white and pure, and all no bigger than two thumbs.  It made me think.  “Had I missed something?”

I rushed into the middle room of my hermit’s hole, where I opened a file cabinet drawer.  I found an old yearbook, with signatures and pictures.  It was hers.  “Oh my, I will have to get this back to her.” Then a pair of fur edged gloves, and several floppy, fabric, flowered purses.  And then books – books upon books upon books, filling the drawer as if it were a gateway to a larger dimension.  “Oh my.”  I clutched a colorful clutch and held it to my cheek, and began to weep.  “I’m sorry.  I am so very sorry.”

Suddenly I woke with the sorrow heavy, the concern real. Were there really things I had accidentally spirited away?  No.  Then I remembered.  I know every nick and knack in my recluse’s realm; there are no beautiful bags or boxes of books that should not be here. It was a dream, full of deep emotions not felt during the steady pace of my waking life.

They say time heals all wounds.  But these are not wounds, and I will keep them safe.

I Am Alone

Originally Written and Posted July 10, 2012, edited in 2024

I am alone.

The dream was like most dreams.  Something observed.  Something I was a part of, yet detached from.  It began as an odd, nonsensical musing about the American Indians battling their oppressors.  The scene quickly shifted to strange, almost Dickens-like imagery, an odd series of narrow water locks, more like flumes, and youngsters fooling their betters out of cups of cream with feats of magic and escape-style trickery.  Large whale-like creatures rocked the small boats that worked through the locks, each whale larger than the one before, as if Escher himself had a hand in the maze like twists and turns of the locks, and the creation of the whales.

Suddenly we were in a home.  I say, ‘we’, while I was clearly all by myself, I could feel her.  I was more than just me – I was a part of a ‘we’.  She was in another room, getting ready for something.  This home was not like any place I have ever been, and yet it felt familiar. Upscale, with all the flourishes that bring her comfort.  She was bustling about, filling the air with her bounce, as she always did.  I was in a vulnerable, prone spot in some back corner of some back room.

She appeared in the open door of the room where I lay, and said, “Well, I’m on my way. Won’t be back tonight, and then tomorrow, we’ll be off.”  She had that slight English lilt that she adds when she uses her favorite British phrases.  But, “we’ll be off,” did not mean we were going for some ride.  As casually as she said it, the phrase was devastatingly final.  Panic ran through me.

I chased after her as she stepped out of the front door.  “What?” I yelled, but she did not hear or did not respond at first.  Outside, the yard is covered with the flotsam of a moving day.  Neighbors and passersby are picking at the debris like crows on a carcass, yet the sun was shining and the air was damp with morning dew.  I made it to the porch where I felt the need to cower behind a pillar, in retreat from the busybody collectors.  She cheerily flipped her shawl over her shoulder and helped a Mr. Butler to negotiate the purchase of a garden hose by one of the neighbors.

Then she turned, looked at me and responded to my earlier cry.  “Oh, didn’t you know?  I won’t be coming home tonight, and then tomorrow, we’ll be off.”  I understood it from our reality.  She would be working out of town, and appended to that was, “we’ll be off.”  Not “off” as in leaving for a trip, but “off” as in the turning out of a light.  I felt the sorrow swell up in me.  I could feel the corners of my mouth curl down, like a child about to bawl.  I clung to the bit of column I crouched behind, hiding from the crows.  I peeked out to catch a fading glimpse of her as she gave Mr. Butler a final word and began to head to her car.  “I’m sorry,” I cried, the tears swelling up as I cowered and clung to the pedestal, avoiding the gaze of the neighbors.  I watched her as she drove away.

I woke, the sorrow thick.  I am alone.

What does it mean when, behind all the vignettes my mind created last night, were the lyrics;

“There's a light

Over at the Frankenstein place

There's a light

Burning in the fireplace

There's a light, a light

In the darkness of everybody's life”

?