Unshared

http://www.flickr.com/photos/terrybiky/
It has been a long while now. I am not the best memory keeper, and in fact, I forget many many things. 

With space and time, I know that things that are for the best do start to feel that way. I can say and feel now that it would have been too much, or not enough of all the different pieces that would have added up to happiness. I can agree with "everything will turn out how it is supposed to" without feeling angry. 

When asked why I stayed for so long, I responded because I wanted to know about love and what it meant, and how to do it without expectation. And when she pushed and asked how I felt about current details that I happened to stumble upon, she wouldn't let me get by with "fine" as an adequate response. 

I said, it wasn't so much that I ached for him, because I could acknowledge the finality and correctness of a decision. But oh for that feeling of closeness, for that someone who knew all the things of my life, who understood better than anyone should what it was like to be me. It hurts sometimes to still have all those pictures of us locked away on a remote hard drive as remote as that island, looking so happy and full of laughter and know that I will never share those and even rarely look at them myself. There is the hole inside of me when I think about the white house with the wrap around porch complete with swing and family and know that it no longer means anything. And, if I'm being honest, there is a birthday approaching that can't be outdone by my last celebration which was complete with pink sands and a sunrise and full of not-quite-yet-broken love. All of this, is now just a dull blurry image. There used to be specificity in what my future was going to look like, and it was not the one that I'm in now, and even though I am happy about how things are going, and know that it is right and good, it sometimes doesn't stop those memories from being there. They exist the same way a song that isn't my favorite anymore still exists and still reminds me of the time in which it was my favorite. And that is what hurts. Not him. Not longing for him, but the longing for a shared narrative and history, and it's still heartbreaking, but just not in the same way. 

These things eventually won't be shared anymore. They are only mine, and like I said before, I will continue to wrap them up in other memories because that is life. I didn't know that when I wrote about recovering from Boston I was writing about me, but a dear friend called me out on it, and she was right as she often is. These memories sometimes come "jarringly unexpected" and creep up in the "least likely of places." Instead of wishing them away, I'm getting used to the fact that they are me, and that even if they are unshared their existence is okay.

Comments

Valerie said…
You are so so good at expressing your thoughts in words. Our conversations have often helped me deal with my own painful, unshared things. So thanks for that. You are the best.
10:45 AM
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