We met on a
warm summer night while the
full moon sailed over head. We were
snuggled deep in a
forest.
The fire burned and he played guitar and sang a song about
Unicorns that made my
jaw drop and my
heart ache.
We moved in together within 3 months, both just 20 and stayed together for 9 years. They were the happiest 9 years of my life(so far).
He looked like a Gypsy, all curly dark hair, dark eyes and a bottom lip like a soft, plump child dressed in red. He taught me what it was like to really love and I loved everthing about him. I loved his music, I loved his kindness, I loved his mind, I loved the magic that crackled in the air whenever we were together, that we knew what the other was thinking and I loved the way he made me feel about myself. He told me I had Jaguar ears, we made the kind of love that sent you out of body and we laughed until we cried.
It's over now. There were things going wrong and we were just too safe in our love cocoon to face them. The laughter was still there but the passion had died. I didn't want us to live a life of complacent love after everything we had shared. It would have been disrespectful.
I went to drama school, had the doors blown off my Soul and threw myself into single life with reckless abandon. I tried everything to cover up the incredible pain of life without his hand in mine, drugs, drink, sex (ironically the one thing that had dried up in our relationship). I lost over 2 stone in weight and started smoking again after 8 years.
Then one day, quite out of the blue, I woke up and I felt better. I don't know how or why and believe me I didn't dig too deeply. I was just relieved. From here my life started to change, little by little. I stopped taking drugs, I quit smoking again, I cut down on my drinking and I stopped letting my bruised ego choose men for me. I realised that I'd been selling myself short and that it was time to stop running from the loneliness. I was still scared but I was beginning to heal.
I sent him long letters explaining my feelings and telling him I was sorry but it seemed there was an everlasting flame burning in my heart for him. A flame that his new girlfriend and my heartfelt desire to let go, couldn't quench. Until today.
Today I realised that I no longer have the right to tell him everything that is on my mind and in my heart. I no longer have the right to look to him, my best friend and my lover for 9 years, to make things right again, to make me feel better. I no longer have the right to hold all that was up against all that is and all that can be and say "I WANT THIS!"
I love him but it's different now. I see the man rather than the projection of perfection I created. I don't need his support or approval to validate me any longer and I realised that we don't know each other at all. How could we when each conversation became loaded with the things we did or did not say. When to be a part of each others lives caused as much pain as not being.
I guess all I really know is this. It takes as long as it takes to mend a broken heart, even if you are the one that instigated the break-up. You can't hurry it up no matter how hard you try. Your memories can hold you back, especially the good ones and you can still be holding on even in the process of letting go.
I will always remember when it was 'Me and My Woman', when he sang to me and that incredible moment when I reached Orgasm for the first time but he's moved on (5 weeks after we split actually -why do men do that?) and so must I.
I will be forever grateful for the things he taught me, for the woman he helped me become and for the lessons that came when I was alone in the dark without his hand to hold.
Without him my life would have lacked certain colours
I know now that when you touch another persons life you become an indelible part of their story and they of yours, we have to make sure we don't leave scars. I left him with a few and I'm sorry. I'll never regret him or the things I've done since. It was all part of growing up and moving on, it just took me a long time to realise it and even longer to forgive myself.