Tuesday, February 9, 2010

we're holding up the bypass

Sometimes I have this need curiosity.
About you.
I used to know you, so, so well. Or I thought I did at least, until we were done with that part of us and I discovered all the skary skeletons in your kloset.
I thought we ended so cleanly, but sometimes you only find the worm in the apple when you cut it open, even if that cut seemed to be so clean and sweet and easy, worm juice. Bitter and sticky and all pervading.
That was those months before you found the new place to fit yourself, where you fit properly and truly like I thought we had but we hadn't.
But that is all in the past now, the way we treated each other whether lovingly or bitterly, the antagonisation that you thought didn't matter, the tears and the yelling and the text messages I made myself delete but think of often. The days spent watching silly english comedy and making out on your couch. I ate hot cross buns with your mother, talked about you and her boyfriend with your sister, and made polite if awkward conversation with your dad. We went shopping for plasticine and candles in cheap-as-chips at seaford and I went back there the other day, realising that the last time I was there was with you, helping you with bio all those ages and stages ago.

All of it is in the past, the good, the bad and the ugly, on both sides.

And now we are friends again. We took our bloody time getting here, but here we are.
And these questions come up. They have lost a lot of the emotion behind them now, but part of me still wants to know, in a curiosity way, rather than a desperation way.

Why didn't you ever call me beautiful until worm juice?
Why didn't you tell me?
Why didn't I let myself see it?

Did you really love me, and if you did, had you loved anyone before me?
I suppose I want to see if we matched up.
I don't know that what I felt for you was entirely love, but I thought it was at the time, and that certainly means a lot.
I always thought you were beautiful, a lot of the time I still do, in an odd objective unemotional way, a calm contented reminiscence of the way we used to be, it's much easier now.
I'm finding that the only things that are still raw are the things I never let myself do until now, like listening to that song. That was still hard, but thats because I didn't let myself go through the pain to have the gain of contentedness.
And I almost always think you're funny.

I think you were the first person I loved that way. I know I had him before you, but much too much of that was fear. Like I said, I know that I will love someone more truly and strongly than I did you, one day in the future, just as you now love her. It's beautiful to see you together. I remember that I told you once that you'd make someone very happy and I wish that could be me, and you didn't want to hear it.
It came true, and that is intensely beautiful.

I heard once that you never really get over someone until you love someone else more than you loved them.
I don't believe that this is true. You have to be very, very brave to get through the seemingly endless stage when it feels like that is true, but its not. This knowledge is a huge comfort to me, as I hum my way along through life connecting with as many people as I can in hopefully a deep way, loving and validating people as we all walk down this road together, all walking in different ways but the same direction.

Some march, some crawl, some skip, some strut. Everyone does bits of it all.

I've marched, I've crawled, I've skipped, I've strutted. Now I hope to spin, looking forward to the future, back to the past, sideways to the people around me, and into myself.

I know you used to read this, I don't think you do anymore.
If you do, and you feel like answering all these questions, go ahead. If you do and you don't want to answer, then don't. If you don't read it, this will never matter.

It matters a lot, but not in an agony way, in a significant painful part of my young life being over way.

Looking forward to our continuing degrees of normal.

3 comments:

  1. That was truly the most beautiful thing I have ever read.

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  2. Like I said today, I'm still with the, 'you never truly get over someone til you've loved somebody else' group. And, like I also said, it's because I've had stepping stones, from one to the other, never having to learn to swim for myself. I think we all have our different truths, and so I'm certainly not disagreeing with you. But for me... how would I get over Ben if I didn't have someone else? I hope I never, ever have to experience that. But life is life and life can be a bitch.

    Beautifully written, my dear. It's good to finally read a blog that I can really get my teeth into, you know? If that makes sense...

    I love you, and I'm very sorry for playing my part in the worm juice.

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  3. Firstly, to serena. Your incredible comment floored me, I feel so honored to have touched you like that, I hope you realise its not meant to be sad. True, its a reflection on sad things that have happened, but its so satisfying and comforting for me to have it in the past.
    I haven't even really had this stuff on my chest, I just read something on http://pleasefindthis.blogspot.com (if you think this was beautiful, check that out). It was about how being someones first love means that in the weeks months or years to come, you will be the first to break their heart, but also the first person who got to make them feel whole. I thought that was intensely beautiful, and it made me think of all this stuff. Basically, thankyou so much for the epic compliment, it goes down in my mind as the best I've ever had.


    And Lauren, quit being sorry. Even I'm not in pain about it anymore, I hate the haunted look in your eyes when it gets mentioned, I hate to think that all that mess affected you so much, I wanted to isolate the pain to me, so I could deal with it and have the whole lot over with at once. Worm juice was awful, but it is over.
    And I appreciate that totally, cos I've been in that place for such a long time, which trust me is awful when you don't have a boyfriend. I must say, I think truth is an objective thing, existing outside of our views of it, but I agree that we all live at different points of discovery, and different ways of living. Maybe it is true and it just wasn't really love? I don't know, I suspect that it was what the world (and therefor that quote) would call love, but I dunno.

    And thanks for saying it was well written, it just kind of spilled out that way, so that makes me really warm and fuzzy inside :)

    And I love you both very, very much.

    The other possibility of course is that I did learn to love something else more, just not a guy. God, friends, family, freedom.

    Either way, it feels good :)

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