Chapter One- LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK
I often wonder if all women watch those sappy movies just so they can cry. Like as though they need to have one of those gut-wrenching, tear jerking sob fests. Maybe they use the occasion to remind them of the one they once loved or in my case still love. They pause and rewind the parts where the man grabs the women and embraces her in his arms and lays the most passionate kiss on her lips and she pulls away knowing that he has hurt her only to stop and look into his eyes realizing they were meant to be and engage in another embrace where their lips meet again. We think to ourselves of the one we love and wished that they were there with you depicting that very action. And we picture it in our head, how it would be, how it would feel. And we remember how it did feel once upon a time when our hearts desire kissed us like that. That tingle you got, the feeling you get in your chest, deep down inside. You knew at that moment that you would be together forever. Then you wake up; realize you’re just watching a movie and that the love of your life wants nothing to do with you. You press play and continue crying your eyes out throughout the rest of the movie.
After the movie I lied awake staring at the wall, not wanting to move. It was like missing the one you love takes your entire life out of you. I thought to myself, “Can I just stay here forever?” My eyes still red from crying hoping not to think of something that could trigger the tears from flowing back down my already chapped cheeks.
I have this strange feeling that he is there. I feel his arms around me and remember the smell of his skin. Then I realize I can’t remember what he looks like when he sleeps. When he was there, I would watch him sleep trying to implant that memory into my mind because I never wanted to forget. I started to cry again.
“Why God? I know he loves me. Why is he not here? Please God; please bring him back to me.” The tears keep flowing and I curl in a ball because the pain in my chest is too hard to bear. “Please God; don’t let anyone keep us apart again. I am not done loving him. I miss him.”
I got into the habit of writing God letters. I once heard if you talk to God like a friend that he will hear your prayer. It has worked before. I once wrote:
“. . . Please watch over him. Please bring him back to me for good. “
It worked. He came back to me. Told me I was the only person that ever showed him unconditional love and he will never forget that. He also told me he never stopped loving me and that no one will come between us again. He told me this the day before he proposed to me. I haven’t seen him sense then.
I don’t understand. It’s like he completely disappeared.
As I wipe the tears from my eyes the pain got worse and tears kept flowing.
I play it over and over in my head what I would say to him the next time I saw him. “I’m not mad at you. I never was. I’m just glad you weren’t hurt. I tried to get you out of jail. I really did try.” He needs to know.
What if he wants me backs? He hurt me after he promised he would never do that again. I wonder if I should tell him I’m seeing someone, even though I’m not. “What do you want me to do break up with him and come back to you when you keep running back to stupid? You were never there for me when I needed you the most. You were always stuck on stupid. Every time you come back she always finds some way to keep us apart. You promised me you would never let her do that again.” Then I picture myself walking away, shutting my door, resting my back against it and taking a deep breath. Then my romantic side gets the better of me and I open up the door and chase after him. “Wait, I love you. I love you so much. No one will ever take the place you have in my heart.” And as tears come down my face he grabs me and kisses me. He pulls away and tells me he loves me and wipes the tears from my cheeks.
“No!” I scream to myself.
See, There are three things that I do not forgive anyone for. Number one is lying to me. Number two is disrespecting me and number three is making me look like a fool. Unfortunately, he has managed to all three of those things every time we get back together and break up and yet I still forgive him and take him back. Is that really love? When I can’t even love myself enough to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Sometimes I just want to scream at him “you have no idea what it’s like to go through your life where everyday I think of you when I go to bed or when I wake up in the morning. When every little thing reminds me of you. You have no idea what it’s like where your entire life is consumed of memories of you. You have no idea what it’s like to go to bed and it’s as though you are there holding me but when I turn around your not there and all I can do is cry. You have no idea what it feels like when the phone rings hoping that the person calling me is you or when there is a knock at the door hoping that that person on the other side is you.”
I know he will be back. He left some stuff over here; his ID, some cloths, backpack, winter jacket. I am holding onto the belief that he has kept this stuff here as an excuse to come back. You would think he would need it, at least his ID and winter jacket. After all, it is December. It’s been over a month and a half. Maybe I should just throw it away. If he needed it he would have been back for it.
If I saw him again, maybe I just won’t say a word. I will just hand him his things and let that be it.
My anger takes the better of me and I just want to yell at him, “You humiliated me!”
I managed to choke back the tears and I find myself staring at the wall again. I look at the alarm. 2:15. I need to get some sleep. I roll over trying to find a comfortable position.
My mind began to wonder again. “Why do I love him?” Everyone asks me that. After all the things he has done to me, lying, cheating, and stealing. Do most women ask themselves this question? Do we have to have a reason as to why we love someone?
I answer myself. “I just do.” It’s like I can’t explain it. Maybe for that brief moment I am with him he makes me feel loved. He makes me want to be a better person. When I am with him he makes me want to be a better person. I have that feeling like I am on top of the world. I want to do better for myself. I want to be nicer to people. I have the urge and reason to get out of bed in the morning.
It’s crazy how we can give advice to our friends about some looser they are dating and tell them day in and day out that the person is no good. And they dish out that same advice to us. You know, being in love makes you not want to hear anything from anyone and defiantly not want to believe what they say. Some things you just have to find out on your own.
I don’t have a reason for loving him. I just do.
Before I knew it I had fallen asleep.
I had a dream that night. For some reason I only remember select details of my dreams. I dreamt that I was in the pharmacy and he was there. He bought me Mike N Ikes. He was with a friend. And we were waiting for his friend to finish buying his things. As we were waiting I remember him holding me and telling me he is sorry. I asked him if his baby’s mother had something to do with us not talking. He said it did and that I should know he will always love me. I remember leaving and walking away from the store with him and that was it. It became a blur after that.
I woke up not wanting to. I wanted to hold onto that dream just like all the dreams I have with him. I want to hold on to them forever. Maybe because it’s a way for me to be with him or that when we dream of someone that person is trying to send us a message. I believe that dreams have meaning. I really believe that in this particular dream he was trying to send me a message.
My favorite dreams are that of riding the bus. They say it means that you’re on your way to obtaining your heart’s desire. I haven’t dreamt of the bus ride in a long time.
I try to shut my eyes again and return to the dream. I scream to myself, “no!” because I have lost him again. I want him so much to come back to me and if I can’t get him in real life I will settle for him in my dreams.
I try so hard to go back to sleep but it’s too bright in my room and as I glare at the alarm clock it reads 10:30. My head hits the pillow again and my body is motionless. It’s as though my body is still sleeping but my mind is awake and eyes are open. I don’t want to move and I find myself staring at the same wall as I did the night before not thinking of anything but just feeling pain.
I managed to get myself out of bed. I walked downstairs to make coffee. The same thing I do every morning. I climbed the stairs and took a hot shower. The water felt warm on my face and back. It was the first thing in a long time that felt warm against my skin. It was the kind of warmth that you feel when you’re lying next to someone. I closed my eyes and imagined him touching my face and moving his hands down my body. I managed to finish my shower and dry off. I checked my e-mail and read my horoscope for the day.
By this time my coffee was done and you can smell the sweet aroma from my bedroom. My favorite thing to watch is the way cream looks when you add it to coffee. It’s so pretty how the white swirls with the deep brown. I made myself a cup with strawberry flavoring along with a bowl of Alphabet Cereal. It is my favorite cereal but this morning neither the coffee or cereal had any flavor. I finished the bowl anyways and grabbed my coat and a cigarette.
The sky was gray and the air was very cold. It was the kind if cold where when you walk outside you hear nothing like time had stopped. I had found that smoking helps me clear my mind; it was a time to think without any distractions accept this morning I thought of nothing.
Shortly after I went upstairs with my coffee still in hand and listened to some music. I began to cry. It was the cry where it sucks all the air out of your lungs.
“God, bring him back,” I yelled. “Bring him back.”
I laid there motionless listening to the lyrics of David Grey:
“. . . Before I open up my arms and fall losing all control
Every dream inside my soul
When you kiss me on that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singin' ain't this life so sweet?
This years love had better last . . .”
Tears started swelling up in my eyes again and they began to fall down my cheeks. I sat there for a while until the tears stopped. That’s when I heard the mailman come.
I got up to see if I got any Christmas cards hoping for money or a gift. I got nothing.
I put my hat and gloves on and went out to smoke another cigarette. By this time it was snowing; the first snow of the season. The small white snow flakes that didn’t stick to the ground. As I smoked I watched the beauty of the snow falling like a light rainfall. I felt the coldness of the flakes on my cheeks and lashes. I listened to the sound it made when it hit the ground.
Do most people go on through life not noticing the world around them? I think people take for granted the most common everyday things and how they perceive them. To most people that first snow of the season wouldn’t seem like much but no one really stops to look at the beauty of it.
Does God do things for a reason just to see who would notice? Like the trees changing color and leaves falling. Would anyone really notice if one day the tree was green and in an instant full of red, brown and orange leaves and the next day it was bare. He takes his time. Me, I like watching the turn of the seasons and how the leaves fall slowly from the trees; the noise they make when they hit the ground; the magnificence of how the leaf falls from the tree; how it swoops and tumbles before resting.
Sometimes I think all I have gone through with him is Gods way of punishing me for something I have done. But what? And how do I make it right? Every time he comes back to me God takes him away. What am I being punished for? Was there someone in my past that I wronged? I don’t understand why he keeps leaving me. This was the third time. What is God trying to tell me?
There are people in my past and present that can not take the place he does in my heart. I have tried to move on. God knows I have tired.
