I forgot what heartbreak was like. It’s a different kind of loss, and a different kind of pain. Not the pain of loss associated with a loved one who lived a long life and finally died of old age, or the loss of a friendship – relationship, even – in which you were the driving force that caused it to break up. There’s loss there, too, and it hurts in its own way.
Heartbreak is different. When you fall in love, a person leaves a mark on you that only they can leave, and when that mark gets ripped away from you before you’re ready, it leaves a gaping hole that nothing else can fill. It leaves questions. Horrible, torturous questions. Sometimes you get answers, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes a person drifts away, sometimes it’s an action that one performs that drives the other away – and that, I think, is the worst kind of heartbreak there is.
It’s because in that kind of heartbreak there’s a definite point in time where things went sour. One moment in time you can clearly see, remember, even relive (and we do relive them. Over and over and over again). You can see that moment constantly, but you can’t do anything about it. There’s no changing it, no way to go back as we’re all being dragged helplessly in time’s unrelenting march forward. It’s like being on a ship and slowly watching the shore you long for most in this world – a shore you know you will never touch gain – shrink slowly into the distance as you head out into the dreary gray and uncertainty of the open sea.
As time goes on, that pain of loss doesn’t come as frequently. We find that it ebbs and flows like a tide, and we have to endure every wave of emotion that comes over us. But eventually, those waves come fewer and farther between, and the happiness starts to occur more than the dark days.
But for others, it doesn’t. Sometimes the pain is all we have left – and so we cherish it. That’s when pain becomes pleasure. Let’s hope neither of us ever find ourselves in that place.
Maybe you experience heartbreak differently, but this is how it is for me. Perhaps you can relate – I don’t know.
What I do know is that I don’t think I ever told you this, but I am so, so sorry for your loss. I was too wrapped up in being angry with Les for the way he ended things to stop and really consider the effects it was having on you. It must have been so hard going through it all, and going through what you’re going through even now. Sweet woman, so much has happened to you in your life, and you deserved none of it.
Another thing I wanted to tell you in all this is that I haven’t been completely honest with you the past couple days. Specifically, when you asked me if I had been crying and I said no, I was just really stoned. Well, I was stoned (at the times that you asked) though I had been crying earlier, but not for the reason you may think.
I cry because we’re no longer together, yes, but it’s also in large part due to coming to the realization that I ruined your trip – your special place in the world – and how deeply I wronged you as a person. A person who has the inherent right to love, laugh, cry, hate, as YOU choose. And you handle it well. The little things you do, the way you explained it to me, special things you take with you when you go places. That’s why I feel the way I do for you. It’s the little things… the big ones… It’s WHO. YOU. ARE. that so ignites the fiery conflagration that burns for you in the deepest part of me.
You’re a person I truly respect, and someone for whom I have deep feelings. I cry because I feel so fucking bad for hurting you and wronging you and fucking up your camping trip. I feel guilt. I feel shame. I feel remorse. And it all cuts right to the bone.
I’m not telling you all this in some pathetic attempt to garner sympathy – I don’t want it and will not accept it. I tell you because I want you to know that with every laborious breath, every forced smile, behind every “it’s okay” and “no problem” that there is an endless abyss of suffering and regret. My suffering is just, to be sure, and I hope that in some small way maybe you’ll think better of me. Better of me because I’m not like other people. It’s things like this here that are important to me. The deep stuff. The stuff few people ever think about or try to understand.
If not, it’s okay. No problem.
You’re the one, Jenna. I knew it the second I saw you when you picked me up at the airport with Yumi November 8th. 2012, and I knew it again when you opened the door this last April; and I know it still – some things won’t ever change.
I understand and respect your decisions, and to be perfectly honest with you, I needed this. I needed you to break it off, so that I could see myself in the situation I feared most, and watch myself continue to do my work, get through each day, and wake up ready to meet the next. I needed to see it to know that I could do it. Because in knowing that, it frees me of the anxiety I had about the situation in the first place. The anxiety that I did not handle correctly, and subsequently led us to where we are now. Much like driving your car, the anxiety I had been feeling the past few weeks was only anticipatory. Once I got behind the wheel of your car and hit the gas, I was right as rain. I really was excited this morning to drive your car back to the apartment. Not because it was hard and I persevered, but because it was easy. The truth is, I am far more capable than I give myself credit, and know now that I had been projecting that low confidence in myself onto our relationship, and that’s where my anxiety was coming from. Driving on the road is easy. Letting go of anxiety and truly experiencing what life and relationships have to offer is easy. I know that now, but now it’s too late. Moving forward, I intend to take actions to remove my low confidence and low self-esteem entirely. They aren’t useful, they serve no purpose, and they will be excised.
It all starts by forgiving myself for what I’ve explained to you here, and this letter, this mea culpa, of sorts, is where it begins.
I make mistakes. Sometimes small, sometimes big. But I always emerge better in the end. I paid a very dear price for this lesson, and in so-doing I hurt someone for whom I care more than myself. But now I’m free of that previous anguish, because I’ve tasted what I feared, and I fucking conquered it. Perhaps it seems a little odd to you, to read this. I know that a lot of people aren’t this way. They don’t learn, they don’t grow, they’re incapable of examining themselves with a critical lens and seeing any real flaws. Maybe it seems a little too convenient. All of the sudden, everything is fine? I’d have doubts, too, were I you. But I’m the one in my head, and I know what I’m capable of. It becomes clearer by the day. With every new experience, and every new challenge. Even here, in this hellish prison of my own making, I continue to flourish.
Maybe this is one of my gifts, the ability to analyze and self-criticize, and therefore turn things around so quickly. There are plenty of things in this world I’m not good at, but I do have a powerful mind, and weakness isn’t one of my flaws.
I love you more than any words I write here could ever convey. Trying to put it into words would only serve to diminish it, and so I won’t type anything else about it beyond those three at the beginning of this paragraph. You’re a special person, Jenna. You don’t know how hard it has been not to grab your face and kiss you these past couple of mornings. The sickly sweet feel of your skin against mine, with my arms wrapped around you, and your scent lingering on me when you walk away… in those brief, fleeting moments… is where I exist. Where my world begins and ends; and I wouldn’t have it any other way. If at some point in the future the spark you had for me hasn’t been smothered by the slow march of time or someone else, and you want to try this again, it will be different. It will be better – I promise.
And you know I always keep my promises.
Ryan
A Lion's Roar 