Adieu

I'm supposed to be studying for a final right now. But I want to get my thoughts down.

It's been almost two months since the last entry. I don't really want to read through it today. There are a lot of potent emotions in that post.

I started chatting with a friend from another blog on facebook today. I've been concerned lately as I've dated and expanded my circle of gay friends that there are so many guys with so many issues in the gay community that finding a guy with a level head and some direction would be nigh unto impossible. He affirmed some of my observations, but assured me that despite what it may seem like, there are others out there like me.

I think one of the things that has made the breakup so difficult for me is that from my point of view the relationship was not about me "trying it out" with Alex, to see if I wanted to hang around. For me, I was already where I wanted to be. I had found someone so beautiful, so goodhearted, that I had no doubt that I wanted to be with him. Because of this, our relationship wasn't so much two fabrics that had been sewn together, needing nothing but unstitching to separate us. It was like two sheets of metal, heated and pounded and welded into one piece. At least it was for me. So a breakup was breaking a part of what I had already considered to be an extension of myself.

There are moments now and again when I get a vivid memory of what it was like to be with him. A stark glimpse of his sleeping face. The feel of my lips on his cheek. Walking into his bedroom and wrapping my arms around him from behind as he sat at the computer. My, I loved that boy...

In those moments, for just a split second, I think "Wait, where is he? Why haven't I seen him in so long?"

The trouble, then, is that even though it's been nearly four months, part of me still thinks he's mine.

I worry sometimes about the future. But I don't worry about whether or not someone will fall in love with me again. For some reason that doesn't cross my mind. The fear I harbor deep down is that I will never love like that again. That I will never take the risk again to let someone in that deep. That I will never fall for someone again. That no one will feel like my companion again.

I was talking to a friend online last night about the relationship. I wrote about my fear that the relationship was never as real as I had thought.

"Did it feel real?" he asked.

"So real I never thought the end was a possibility."

"Then don't doubt it."

A moment later he wrote: "You were beautiful in that relationship. The way you loved him was. Your friends would talk about it. You lit up when you talked about him."

I remember that feeling.

Part of me is still waiting for him to come back. For him to come to his senses. To knock on my door, tear-stained cheeks, and longing in his eyes.

That part of me is finally beginning to realize how hopeless that thought is. How much it wouldn't fix everything that's happened. How the pain, the breaking of trust, the locking myself away emotionally has already happened. And it can't be undone. Only worked through.

It's time to let go.

Alex, if you ever read this, I love you. I miss you everyday. You will always bring mixed emotions when I think of you. Such sacred beauty in the love we shared. Such piercing agony in the shattering. I have to finish what you started back in January, though. I can't take it anymore. So I'm letting you go.

Goodbye Alex.