by Lael Clapp

Created on: August 13, 2008

I've a past relationship that is not truly past. It's something I'm working through and like so many things in life, there is no clean cut ending. It's a progression. I am daily working through this that was supposed to be. Some days I am great with it, seeing so much that I didn't see when I should have, and other days all I can do is mourn its loss.

And then there are days when I hurt, when I feel like a piece of me is missing. I wander through the day trying to find it like I've simply misplaced it, and then I remember I gave it away to someone I loved, someone I still love and always will. And even though my life moves on and new people come in to take up more places in my heart, there is this once thing, this one place, this one person who is still so much alive in my memory if not my life.

It's those unguarded moments, right before I turn out the light, or when I accidentally slip up and say something he used to say, or I see something he loves that pulls me back into his smile, I find myself remembering. Remembering. I wear something he liked and I feel compulsed to burn it, but instead I find myself smiling at the memory of something that was just for us.

And then I remember how divergent our lives were and are, and I wonder why I didn't see it in the beginning. I was not looking for someone new in the beginning. I already had someone and I didn't really want him. I was looking for freedom and instead he wrapped me around his little finger, in just such a way that I wanted him to.

You love someone and it makes you so much more dimensional as a person. You become, as you are loving them. I loved so much more about him then I didn't love about him. He filled my life and that is why I didn't mind not having my freedom, but I had a hard time trusting him, and that damaged us. I wanted to. I tried, but rather than the distrust coming from outside influences, though there were some of those, it was mostly internal. I just couldn't believe him. I respected him at first, adored him even, but he distanced himself when things got difficult, building walls in his life, and I just couldn't maintain a wrecking crew.

I will always love this man. Because I saw in him what he can't even see in himself. I saw everything that he is in his heart and what a beautiful thing it is. It hurts to not be wanted, to have someone tell you they can't love you with their whole heart, but I would much rather have the truth then a lie. And I would rather know I loved with all I had rather then not have it to give.

I sometimes wonder if I'll ever want another man in my life in that way. There's been so much abuse in my life in this area, and one has to wonder at some point, when to cut losses and run. I am tired and I don't trust myself to make wise choices any more. But I am a writer and if I cannot feel, I cannot write. The ending of this relationship has finally blown the doors open for my writing muse. And it is so good to reconnect with this part of me that has been silent for so long. I have him to thank for that, and I suppose this is a better gift than any wonderful lie he could have told me.

I am not in love, but I love. I love him still, something of which I am not ashamed, for I can function under the weight of it, and maybe my view is a bit more sensitive, my thoughts more colorful, and my heart a little softer.

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