It rolls into my inbox, my own fault. I have not changed the settings that tell the world to alert me to you being out there.
You are interviewed, photographed, recorded. I read, I look, I listen. I can’t *not* even though I wonder why, really.
I try to place these feelings I have.
It makes me smile, I am so proud of you. I am. Even after so long. I want to reach out and say ‘Well done beautiful, you deserve it’ and in a flight of fancy imagine dropping you a note to say so. I won’t, of course. But I hope you know.
I soften as you candidly admit that you were a nervous boy, timid and shy around others. That you still are.
I listen to your velvety voice and remind myself to take the sound of you off my ipod, which I thought I had done already, but which hasn’t stopped popping up persistently on shuffle, and still shocks me each time.
My heart leaps strangely when you say something that sounds like me, about kissing and clashing teeth, and how you like that best. In truth, I still expect you to be about me. I do. And even though I have let you go (I have, despite how it sounds), I expect it still. An homage hidden in your work, your words, I expect it and look for it and perhaps trick myself into seeing it. It is an arrogance, I know, but I know you also and how deep I am in you. I am not sure why it makes me feel like crying a little.
I look for hints of your happiness, I see some, and feel a gentle warmth and calm. I do hope you are happy. You like where you are living now better and I’m glad.
I look for references to your no-longer-new girlfriend and am sorry and happy when I see none. I almost want to see it and process how it feels. I would expect still a pang of something, and I feel like I want to put it up to the light to examine exactly what it is made up of. But I do want you to be petted and loved and kept safe.
I wonder a little what my face looks like in all of this (and I have stopped in the middle of you talking (to me…?)) to write this, because I wanted to get it on the page, raw and puzzling and predictable.
It is early, I haven’t eaten. I must do that. But first I had to confess out loud that I can’t *not* look for you, even if it is only sometimes now. And the maelstrom in finding you is still fascinating to me.
24 comments
This is heartbreaking and sad. It makes me want to hold you and rock.
I would like some holding and rocking. Thank you for the sweet thought.
Ferns
Man, this is good! Reading writing like this makes me wish I still had my old blog… Of course, I was never this good…but still, points for stirring inspiration :)
*big smile* Thank you so much for the lovely compliment!! I’m glad you enjoyed it, and you should totally write again. I’d love to see it.
Ferns
Oooof. Right in the heartache. I don’t read anyone that does bittersweet better than you, Ferns. I just wish I didn’t have so much to feel bittersweet about when you write about this stuff. I wish I could read it and just think, “That’s so sad but sweet.” Instead it makes me think about my own “what might have been,” which is still very tough for me.
” I don’t read anyone that does bittersweet better than you, Ferns.”
*smile* Thank you!
And I’m sorry for hitting you right in the heartache, though I guess it means I am doing something right.
I trust that in time, the sweet will outweigh the bitter.
Ferns
Awww… Cuts to the core! Some loves run so deep that its beat never does really stop but lives somewhere in our heart. Bittersweet. Makes tears flow again, if only for a short time. Healing really.
~ Vista
*nod* I think we always keep pieces, and *should* keep pieces, the edges just soften over time instead of being jagged.
This morning felt strange: sweet and complicated and kind of fascinating, to feel this mixture of different things. It was more positive than not, so I am happy for that.
Ferns
“I expect it and look for it and perhaps trick myself into seeing it”
Your are still there, and always will be. Once you turned the key to unlock his heart, you moved in and built your own hidden, and sacred place there. As you loved, inspired, taught him and kept him safe, you were woven into the tapestry of who he has become and those threads are now a permanent part of him.
I know this to be so because in my own life, there have been those very few who have taken their place in my heart and although they are gone, they leave behind those threads that I keep as treasures.
Warm hugs to you, my friend.
*smile* Thank you slapshot, that was a really lovely thought, I appreciate it.
And I am really glad you have had those people in your life also.
*warm hug*
Ferns
Selfish enough to not want to understand completely… but empathy… that I can do. Wine. Wine would be good here. *big hugs*
Thank you for the empathy, though it was more sweet and curious and strange than upsetting.
Either way, you are right, wine is *always* a good thing.
*big hug back*
Ferns
I can only think to offer platitudes and disconnected thoughts of “oh… I think I’ve been there!”
You manage to find the sweetness in the sad, the coherency in the disparate, and the reminder that love is worth it, even when it’s only for a season.
To love — with all the sweetness and all the sadness and without any guarantees. Cheers. :)
*smile* Thank you for the thoughts, and yes, it’s totally worth it.
“To love — with all the sweetness and all the sadness and without any guarantees.”
Cheers!
Ferns
HOLY HELL. This is how I feel when I even THINK of losing him. So far I have not, but still. This is the core of My deepest fears, to only catch glimpses of him from afar, and feel it all over again.
I have his voice on My phone, I know if it ends it will take years to delete it…I will torture Myself on purpose with it at first, and then it will be as you described. Unwitting, accidental..breath taking.
HUGs
M. FV
Don’t think about it!!! Ever!!
Thank you for the hugs.
Ferns
*sniffles*
Awww… *hands you a tissue*.
It’s okay, really.
Ferns
No matter what does/has happen you made your mark on his heart and mind and knowing you my far away but much thought of friend it was a good mark
Love
Coug
*smile* I like to think so, and thank you for saying so Coug.
Ferns
Do you two not speak at all?
Mine and I still speak, a few times a week, sometimes a lot and sometimes just a line or two. Neither of us has given any indication we want to stop doing so. It helps in its own way. I know he exists, he breathes, he lives. My guess is that he does it for some of the same reasons.
No, we don’t speak. It was hard enough to let it go and keeping in touch would have just made getting over it more difficult.
I’m so glad you are still such good friends with your ex, though. It’s wonderful when you can manage it.
I do have some lovely exes who I count as friends, and one I consider my best friend, so I am generally pretty good with that after a period of distance. But not with this one.
Ferns
So beautiful… But in the as if that matters department, I’m so grateful to know that D/s and romance do rhyme…
So thank you for that… And for some amazingly honest sharing with strangers like me…
*smile* It absolutely matters: I think everyone should know that D/s and romance can live happily together, even if it doesn’t last forever. I’m glad you got that from this.
Ferns