#epihpany

When I was away, I was missing my former lover so badly that I could barely breathe. Knowing that he was so far away from me, so unattainably far, was horribly painful to me. It wasn’t that I wanted to get back together or that I wanted to be his friend. I was having trouble feeling his presence in the world and that scared me. Maybe even more than our actual break-up did. 

When I got home, I messaged him. I told him that I really missed him and that he needn’t respond to my message if he did not feel so inclined. I told him that he was the only person who could really understand how I was feeling and that was why I reached out to him. I made sure to specify that he was aware that none of my conversation was coming from a place of me being ready or willing to be in a relationship or be friends with him but that I needed to feel his presence. He responded a few hours later and we were actually able to talk and have a real conversation in what seemed like the first time in ages. 

I had considered telling him I was going to Texas in the interest of being honest with him and not keeping secrets but I couldn’t quite figure out if that was something I should really do or something I was compelled to do because I was recovering from an abusive relationship. I talked it over with my therapist and she said she wouldn’t tell me what to do in this regard but that I was correct in thinking my strong will to tell him about my plans was illogical and that I didn't actually owe him any kind of explanation. In the end, I opted not to tell him anything and just go about my business. My therapist was right in that I don’t owe him any kind of explanation as to where I am spending my time, especially now that we are no longer together. I still felt uneasy about it but I tried to let that run it’s course and eventually fade to the back burner as I prepared for Texas and what might await me there. 

As I said previously, Texas was a complete failure of a trip. The point in me going there was to be able to take a break from all of the trauma I had been living lately. It was to try to help me relax and reacquaint myself with the familiar feelings of adventure and promise. Instead, I found myself with an abundance of solitude and very few options other than inward reflection about my life, love and current situation. I realized at some point that I still loved him, more than ever. A guy was hitting on me in a bar and it was completely uncomfortable for me. I wished so badly for my love to show up, like he had always been there, wrap his arms around me and keep me safe. I dreamt of falling asleep next to him and waking up to dewy kisses. And when the blow of realization that these hopes and wishes would not come to fruition hit, I was devastated all over again in an unfamiliar and uncomfortable place. 

I began to reflect on my relationship with my friend from Texas. She is a woman who has always enjoyed affection and attentions, especially by me. I always played my part rather dutifully, even to my own detriment. At the time, I believed and truly felt that this was because I loved her and maybe at some point, I did. But I think that my relationship with her was so much of a mystery that I always kept turning the pages of our own novella, eager to see what was going to happen next and hopeful for fulfillment. I was very good at writing lovely sentiments for her. She asked me who she was and I would tell her in the most endearing and romantic ways possible. I could do it on a moment’s notice without any writer’s block. I always found it puzzling because it was never that easy when I was trying to convey how I felt about my boyfriend and it inspired guilt and internal struggle. 

My trek to Texas, while hard and unenjoyable to endure, was not fruitless. It granted me perspective and for that, I will always be grateful. Like I said, my relationship with my friend was always a mystery and the potential for greater plot twists was always so great that it was impossible to put the book of us, down. But that’s just it… our relationship, our friendship, our…whatever- was and is a work of fiction. I could always write to her because I was writing glorified versions of generic sentiments. I could always write to her because I am a writer and I was simply, writing. I put so much stock in to our friendship and the potential of what we might one day have liked to have had without any notion of the reality of our circumstance. She is fiction to me. I am fiction to her. We made each other up in the most interesting ways possible to keep each other’s attention and when we arrived at the crossroads of reality and fantasy, we fumbled. Why? Because nothing was truly there to begin with. 

It was hard for me to write to my boyfriend or to discuss the legitimacy of my feelings for and with him because of just that; they were real. Confusing, no doubt- but real. I couldn’t make anything up for him because I wanted to know him for who he was in reality. I wanted to understand him and his flaws, his goals, his everything and more importantly, I wanted him to know me just as intimately. I didn’t want the delusion of fantasy to cloud our potential of magic in reality. And so, naturally, things in my relationship with him were harder but unabashedly better. When we were good, my god were we fucking fantastic.