Reflections

This time last year I was with the love of my life, in Idaho, with snow piled around our little home. Her dad lived in the house next door, we were five minutes from natural springs and wild places, and life was good.

Except it wasn’t. I’d left my child, my family, my community behind in Texas. I cried daily for the loss of my child, when he was alive and well, 1,500 miles away. I didn’t want my wifey to see my tears or know how miserable I was, because I wanted her to be happy.

I left my community I’d been a part of in Austin for over six years because I wanted us to last, to have this chance. I knew she was the love of my life. I still know it. And I don’t blame her for the lack of trust. I truly don’t. I tried so hard to show her she could trust me, that I was faithful completely, in mind, spirit, body, and soul. I thought she saw it. I thought she felt me, truly saw me. She did, more than anyone ever has in my life. And so to make the dedication clear I married the wilds, with her by my side, and moved us to Idaho. Leaving my son and my community behind. And I intended it to work. To keep. For her to keep me.

I ran back to Texas after six weeks. Then back to Idaho for three months. When it became violently clear that she would never trust me, when she hid my pistol, when I felt unsafe, the survivor instinct instilled in me from the death of my grandmother took over. I ran. Three days before my 40th birthday I got back to Texas, with my kitty Yuki, and what I could carry in my little hatchback car. I spent the next few weeks alone. Ren Faire season began and all it did was remind me of her. I mourned.

I still mourn.

I’d programmed/conditioned myself to put the needs and wants of our relationship before my own, defending her against concerned inquiries from friends. I broke away from family, and self-isolated until all I had was her. I made myself small and uplifted her. I listened as she made disparaging cruel remarks, trying to prove I had a sense of humor like hers, when inside I turned to ice. She’d say she was just teasing, and I’d convince myself that not only was she right and I was overreacting/over-feeling, but that her comments were true, and I was a horrid person, lucky to have caught her.

And I was lucky. I know I was. Her love uplifted me when it was good, she overwhelmed me with her energy that I was weak for, I happily sank to my knees before her and considered myself lucky. Love-bombing was something I’d never encountered before her, I didn’t know what it looked like. I do now.

I forgot every moment she was cruel and teased as soon as she touched me. I knew I was Her and she was Me, our souls were made of the same stardust, and nothing will ever change that. She is it for me.

My soul waits for her…in this life we won’t make it…but I know what I felt with her and I hope so much that in the next life we can make it right.

Still I cry for her like the loss is new, if I dwell on it I sink again, and I’m sobbing now sprinkling my keyboard with strained tears, because I haven’t let myself feel it for so very long.

I miss you, Stardust. I miss my best friend. I still wait.

Not in this life. She will never forgive me. And I still haven’t forgiven myself.

When I’m asked about dating or told to “put yourself out there” or “get over her by getting under someone else” it infuriates me. People who have never experienced a Knowing this deep say such things. And I count them unlucky in life.

The love we had could sustain me the rest of my existence. I don’t miss being touched or loved by anyone but her.

In this time since I’ve learned I’m tired of wrapping my life and hopes and dreams around someone else. Even when they align, as hers and mine did, I never learned to love without becoming codependent. I never learned how to set and maintain healthy boundaries, because I was never allowed to as I grew. Being a Jehovah’s Witness, being raised as such from birth, means that your life and dreams can wait. Put it off, wait. This system of things, this world full of worldly people, those aren’t the real life. The real life is after Armageddon. THEN you can go to college for a hundred consecutive years if you want (and yes, I do want), then you can have a family, then you can travel and explore and have all the time in the world to traverse our planet on foot, if so desired. For the gays, THEN you will be healed and desire heteronormativity, or God will just take away your desire to be touched and loved in the way you feel is right. You’ll be made over to not need such base things. The real life isn’t now. It’s in the future.

And the life you have now, it’s not yours. It belongs to everyone else. The congregation, the elders, your peers, your family, you’re spread so thin among so many people that you learn that your will and desires are nonexistent. Put it off. Put it off ’till paradise, and THEN you will be happy.

Give your husband what he asks for, then you will be happy.

Give your time and youth to the organization, then you will be happy.

You SHOULD you NEED TO you MUST.

Never were we encouraged to pursue what our dreams might be. And they were so restricted and stifled that I eventually forgot what they were. Even though they sat in the attic of my mind, pushed into a dusty corner, they were still there, they existed, I just didn’t think about them anymore.

Thing is, I was conditioned perfectly to give my everything to my person. I give and give and give until there is nothing of me left. I become a quiet, passive shell, withdrawing to wander the forests in my mind, but on the outside compliant to everything asked of me. I don’t know how to not give everything to someone I love.

So I choose not to love in that way again. My heart is a will-o’-the-wisp, and I won’t confine it. It wouldn’t be fair to the person who caged her, it wouldn’t be fair to my child, it wouldn’t be fair to me. I am a solitary wanderer, and shall remain such.

At night she waits for me in my dreams. Waking alone with my skin still burning from her hands, I wipe the sad from my eyes with the grit from the sandman, and keep going.