Train tracks

I talk to my best friend every day. Usually about the mundane details of everyday life, but often enough about the really good stuff. Today it was time for the really good stuff. I wasn't sure why my past was bleeding into my present. I was certain he and I had said our goodbyes. Letting famous poets bid our farewells far sweeter than any "Dear John" we could have composed ourselves. Yet here he was.

"What [is] my lesson for being drawn to such an elusive man" I asked him? He couldn't answer. His only advice was to tell me I couldn't control my emotions. I could try to kill them but I think we both knew that's what I'd already tried doing and here we were in some semblance of together.

"I hear you, but I'd prefer you wouldn't." Was what he said in response to me waiting to have my heart broken by him. Surely it will come I assured both him and my best friend. I silently hoped he would understand he had the power to not ever allow it to happen. But many more pieces of me knew it would. Not intentionally, but as a direct result of his nature. Which was one of the things that drew me to him. In his head he had an idea of who he was. A scientist. A bachelor. A lover of pragmatism who doesn't get caught up in menial emotive paradoxes. And me, the prototypical emotive paradox being the current object of his affection. It made him unknow himself. He noted the ease with which we exist in each other's presence. As if we already understand each other's rhythms. I agreed. He doesn't like that it doesn't make sense and I'd grown a particular affinity for jazz.

He was selfish. He admitted that. Even selfish with me. Demanding of my full attention. A whiskey drinker the first time we kissed he tasted of rye. Maybe that's why I've been intoxicated the whole time.

"I don't want him to come back if he's not going to stay. I don't know how to enjoy him with an expiration date. I'm always holding back." I explained to my Person. To which she said, "Vacations have an expiration date, it doesn't mean you don't go and just enjoy as much as you can." And then the most honest and heart wrenching truth escaped my lips causing a sharp chill to grip my spine and tears to fall from my face

I don't want him to be vacation. I want him to be home.

The whole thing simultaneously giving me strength. Remembering the state of emotional disarray I was in this time last year. Begging someone to love me who clearly had no interest, how was this different? I wasn't begging. Or even asking. I had simply acknowledged my feelings. I was honest. And my wellness was not dictated by his response. In fact, my very breath came from a decision to honor and be true to myself. To try for something.

Jennie said its putting pennies on train tracks. I said it felt like putting myself on a train track. But maybe she's right. I'm not laying down to die. I'm living. Im living full out in my truth and if it comes with a little heartbreak, well God I've been through worse.