I Carry On
I look out the window, my forehead leaning against the cold glass, trying to see her. I let out a deep, troubled sigh as I search for her. She’s got to be out there somewhere, but how in the hell am I supposed to find her?
I ponder going out there after her, searching for her, never resting until I find her… but I know that I can not. Four weeks after my surgery, the flesh is most definitely too weak no matter how willing the spirit.
I stare out the window, feeling somewhat trapped at home, feeling impatient, feeling that more of my precious life is slipping through my fingers. I am riddled with angst at being stuck in limbo after already spending the first thirty five and a half years of my life trying to be someone who never really existed.
I miss her so much and it tears me apart that I have no idea if I will ever find her. I see other couples, so happy together — at least ostensibly — and I am painfully reminded of what my heart has cried out for all my life but has always been cruelly denied.
I sometimes wonder if it would behoove me to let go of her entirely — no easy task, considering that blossoming romance seems to be everywhere, rubbing potent salt in the wound of her absence - yet I continue the daily struggle to keep alive my hope of finding her. I know not whether I can emerge from that struggle victorious, but I fear that giving up the struggle can only doom me to a lifetime of loneliness.
With dark uncertainty, deep weariness, and piercing loneliness, I carry on. I can do nothing else.
Author's note: This piece is reflective and introverted. It's kind of an experiment for me. Please let me know what you think.
Comments
Interesting
Very interesting
Love
One can not help who they fall in love with nor can they stop it. True love lasts forever even in the absence of the loved one.
Hilltopper
"True love lasts forever..."
In a way I envy those who can believe that, even more those for whom it does seem true, couples who marry young and fifty years later are still together, when I have gone through two marriages, two divorces and at least three very near marriages more..."
The thing is, people change over time, they develop, and there can come a time when the two of them have developed in such different directions that they no longer have much in common, they have different goals, want a different way of life from each other.
Do they try to pretend all is unchanged, live a lie that hurts both of them more and more, day by day? Or do they agree that they have read this book to its end, close it and each go out to find another book?
One can part without acrimony. It still feels like losing a limb, but at least one can stay in touch and be friends with each other.
Nowdays, with much more equality between the sexes, ladies are allowed to get educated, develop careers, and have ambitions too. Inevitably that means they can diverge from how they felt before, and differences expand and become real incompatibilities between partners. It is inevitable. Also, now we live longer, men are not so often already worn out hulks and wrecks in their forties and fifties just as women are reaching their full maturity.
I wonder sometimes about what lies behind the facade of my few friends who celebrated their silver, and golden weddings... What surrendered hopes and ambitions, what suppressing, even oppressing, of their own hopes and dreams, went into managing a life-long relationship.
Romantic dreams of happy ever after are probably fine in fairy tales, but when you are not the Author who controls all of the plot and characters in it, they probably don't exist.
Briar
Briar
Wonderful Comments
Sephrena -
I have attempted to do something along the lines of what you describe. I was very willing to let the door close when the girl I love chose someone else - because that's what real love is and I love her enough that I want her to be happy with or without me - but I have tried to leave a note on the door just in case it should ever reopen. I have kept in contact with her and I intend to keep that up as long as things allow. I avoid pushing anything on her but just try to make it known that I'm always glad to hear from her. What will be will be.
Hilltopper -
There is a girl whom I really love. However, I told her how I feel a while ago and she gently let me know that she doesn't feel the same way. I was willing to let her go her own way - and I still am - so that she might be happy. That's what real love means: being willing to give up the one you love if it means that she will be happier.
But you're right, one can not help falling in love with someone who is so lovable.
At least she and I are still friends and still keep in contact. I'll just be very glad to have her in my life however I can have her.
Briar -
I can only speak for myself, but I feel that it doesn't matter to me what I achieve, where I travel, what I see or what I do if, at the end of the day, I must crawl in bed alone night after night and continue to face what I do devoid of physical and emotional affection.
There was an episode of a TV show called Everwood during which a wife says to her husband that she wishes she could have been out there experiencing life (or something like that) and the husband becomes upset. He asks her if she doesn't feel that life between the two of them isn't every bit as profound as any adventure that one could have out there.
I agree with that completely. Real love is so meaningful and profound that it rivals any professional, travel, financial, material or other experience one could have. Again, no job, trip, amount of money, possession, or other experience makes any difference for me if I must be alone to have it.
Being lucky enough to celebrate a silver or gold anniversary does not mean that one just misses out on what could have been. It means that one traded one set of wonderful experiences for another, the important point being that neither set of experiences is better or any less respectable. They are just different; equal but different.
Please do not misunderstand. To each his or her own. For some, it is right to pursue one's ambitions above other things because that is what he or she is meant for. This is right. For others, it is love, affection, and emotional partnership that one is meant for and this, too, is right.
Thanks for your comments everyone!
Carrying On
At times, we must carry on when our loved one for whatever reason departs. That is when our hearts become broken as we await their return. It is when the loved one hurts or betrays us tht we can become harsh and bitter. But we must overcome in order to find peace and allow them their choice. In time, hopefully they will return.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine