“All I see out there is dirty, frozen snow yet you’re talking to yourself and smiling as if you’re being serenaded by your Romeo. You look like a crazy person,” Ally said sneaking up behind me.
I was staring out of my balcony lost in a world only I could I see, creating characters in my mind and bringing them to life as if I were the great Merlin himself.
“I was thinking about a story that I'm working on,” I said.
I know,” she said wrapping her arms around my neck and kissing me on the cheek. “You're a weirdo, but I love you. In fact, I came across a quote the other day that made me think of you. I wrote it down," she said releasing me to get her phone.
“What does it say?”
“After everything I've been through, I'm still smiling. Not because I'm strong but because I'm fucking crazy. Now that should scare you,” she said.
I giggled. “That’s the quote that reminded you of me?"
“It's true, isn’t it?”
“I don't know. ” I said.
“I've seen you run down by a truck a hundred times, and you walk away without a scratch. I think that’s crazy,” she said.
I looked at her thinking what truck?
The last time I got ran over was several years ago when I walked out of court without Caesar. I'd never felt so lost and misplaced. My heart had never been more broken and my arms so empty. And despite the fact that I saw the truck barreling down on me, and could've sidestepped enough to walk away with broken bones, I pawed the ground, lowered my head, hunched my shoulders and charged back like a bull. It was that or live partially paralyzed - floundering like a headless chicken - trapped and controlled in CX's mind games.
Was mine an act of insanity? Perhaps. But that act of rebellion to fight for my freedom, to date, has marked one of my finest moments. Robin Williams said, "We are all given a little spark of madness and we shouldn't lose it,"
But I did not get up and walk away without a scratch as Ally believed. I spent weeks and months stumbling, crying and writing my way through the dark days that at times, I thought would never end. I surrendered to the pain and let it tore me to shreds knowing that I had to go through the hurt in order to heal. In the words of Golda Meir, “Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart do not know how to laugh either"
I charged my way through Thomas’s death and other difficult situations since, but nothing with the force of being hit by a truck.
“What events are you referring to?” I asked.
"Michael and Clark," she said. Your heart has taken some serious blows lately, yet here you are talking to yourself and smiling as if you're the happiest person in the world,"
"That's because I am happy, Ally," I said.
"Which part are you happy about?"
"All of it," I said.
She stared at me for a long time, her perfectly threaded brows furrowed into confusion as she grappled to understand my reasoning. She still talks about the Michael fiasco with such heated passion, her body constricts into a blazing inferno and her eyes narrows into blades. Harboring so much negativity for no good reason is confusing to me.
"Why are we still talking about Michael?" I asked her one day.
"It's only been a few months," she said.
"That's too long,” I said.
"He betrayed you, Kit,"
"No. He betrayed himself," I said. “He cheated on his fiance. He now lives in a marriage built on secrets - his deception is buried in their bedroom walls. Whenever he looks at her, touches, crawls into bed beside her, he does so with a secret he cannot tell. He failed to disclose that he was engaged, so that he could keep coming to my bed, but I refuse to go about my life thinking of myself as a woman betrayed. Why would I allow him to walk away with a shred of my happiness?"
I saw Michael a couple weeks after he got married. He walked into my apartment smiling, ready to take me into his arms the way he always greets me. I was cordial, but left no doubt that we had become a distant toll.
"Why didn't you tell me that you'd gotten engaged?" I asked him. For me, that was the big question. The thing I struggled most to understand - something to give a modicum of reason to his deception. His answer was a simple shrug of one shoulder - no apology and or explanation. Nothing. I stared at him, saddened that I had lost a friend. I certainly don't hate him, there's no anger, no sense of being wronged - just closure. In fact, this period of my life feels like a time of closing doors, even with Daniel. We were given a chance to step back in time and we made the same decision we did over a decade before.
And as for Clark, I found closure with him too - the uncertainty about us is over. I left him the first time because I had a simple demand, be in a committed relationship with me or be out. He didn't know where he stood, so I left. But he came back. "I'm in," he said. "I don't want to lose you," But he wasn't in - not really. Shortly after we got back together, he said he was dealing with too much drama to be in a relationship. And so, we parted ways again. We still talk sometimes - and the way I feel about him hasn't changed. I am a friend who will sit with him and listen and cheer him on where ever life takes him. But the days of him crawling into my bed without any emotional risks are over. Casual sex works only if both parties are in it for the same reason. But at some point, someone will move on. Our relationship as it stood wasn't nurturing to me. And despite passionately desiring the man and missing him, fucking just to fuck is of no interest to me at this point.
I am a sexual, sensual, passionate woman - I love with all of me. I cannot help myself. And as such, my love desires a home with the kind of partner who values the fact that when I kiss his lips, I share with him the flavor of my heart. And when I take him into my arms and wrap him in my nakedness, my body is stitched with the threads of my soul.That being said, I don't think there's anything wrong with Clark not wanting to be in a committed relationship. Whatever his reasons, I respect them. I've had my share of casual affairs. At certain points in my life - that's all I could afford. And so, I accepted with grace that we were at different places in our lives. He wasn't ready for what I had to offer, and I could not offer less - nor could I accept the bare minimum that he gave me. But what is there to be angry, bitter or unhappy about? If someone doesn't want to be in your life for whatever reason, does it not make sense to let them go? Is there anything more wasteful and tragic than giving your love to someone who cannot appreciate or wants it?
"Don't you get tired of things not turning out the way you thought they would?" Ally asked when I posed the questions to her.
"I don't get into any situation thinking that it is going to turn out a particular way. I accept people and situations as they come. Don't get caught in the life-is-supposed-to-be-this-way trap, Ally. I promise that if you resist change, life will break you,"
The best we can do is keep true and committed to what we want- but remain adaptable and be ready for change. We give life all we've got, understanding that one day living itself will be taken from us. For this, do we need a little spark of madness?
As I wandered through the rooms of my life, pulling the curtains closed in some and turning off the lights in others, I realized that closure like happiness and forgiveness is an inside job, and luxuries that one must afford oneself. Some of us are waiting to get closure from others that will never come. Some people leave our lives without saying goodbye, hurts us and never apologize and we may never know why. It’s up to us to decide when it's time to write, The End.
In my previous post, I asked, what happens to a love deferred? I think I know the answer - that at some point she packs her bags and close the door on all of her what-might-have-beens, so that she can move unhindered into her next phase.
"Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim," ~ Nora Ephron ~
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