Once in Awhile

It took two years for me to get over him and even now I still have relapses. The whole thing embarasses me, not that anyone knows about what I am going through,  but that I feel weak and stupid for not being able to move on fast enough. He did.  But my love story ending with him was not any different than all his other love story endings.  He left his Danish wife for a hot-blooded Spanish lover who he left by surprising her with a Chinese wife, who he cheated on with  a Stewardess friend who he took hiking to Lofoten in Norway. And, he left both of these last women for me, a girl he met on the internet and promised eternal love. The whole thing was convulted, sordid and stupid. But, all sounded deliciously complex to me in on our internet chats.  In our last conversation, he told me I needed to find a "real" man. I  wish for him death by decaptiation (anger for me is the last stage of heartbreak and this one has taken its time getting here). 

 Here is some background:  .He was the man I met on the internet. Then met in person in Amsterdam. Then, I talked to him for another year about our rmeeting in Amsterdam - and that was all it was. At the time, I thought he would move our relationship forward.  He would want to see me again.  Talk about something else.  I waited patiently for him to change things up and it never happened. I've learned that  that when a man wants you, he wants you now, and he wants to be with you and marry you - that is the only place the game goes. All I was was his Amsterdam girl, the Girl he wanted to play the role of Celine in Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Those were his favorite love stories of lovers meeting one day in a city Europe, losing eachother for nine years, and then accidently running into eachother for another day in Paris, At first I played along. talked incessantly about the movies and how we compared to the movie lovers.  It felt strange, but I thought this was some form of romance I had yet to experience.  It got old quick, but still I played along, and still I fell more in love with him because I needed to remember what falling in love was like. In my defense, I am a movie lover and a sappy romantic. But my love didn't  go all to waste.  It changed me. I got out of my sweats, lost weight, sent my son to college, and moved to Maine to start a new life.  He is the second man I have ever loved. The first one was an old boss who taught me about suprising, unexpected love and about acknowleding your feelings even though they are untimely or or not acceptable by any societal norm (I was married when I fell in love for the first time in my life).

But, back to my current dileman about how long to grieve him. I have always grieved the life span of my lossses,whether it was my father's death which took me over 10 years for me to realize I was still grieving; or the end of my marriage which I greived by weeping, locking myself in a room and not bathing;  or the loss of a friend, which made me cuss alot.  But, this grief has been more resistant to becoming a passing memory.  This all made me think about a woman I know whose sister's daugther committed suicide two years ago.And every time I run into this woman at the Starbucks where she works she talks to me about her sister and the fact that she must move on.  I know she loves her sister and she worries about her, but, even so,  it seems a bit callous for her to say such a thing. Like everyone else she subscribes to the "moving on" principle; that there are so many other things to do that do not include "wasting too much time on any one thing." All this made me think about my own loss, even though it is not comparable to losing a child. And, still here I am still mourning a lover who left me quite awhile ago. But, what can be more important than being part of an experiece from beginning to  end, however long that is. I have tried to move on with other lovers but the pain has pulled me back because love is rare and requires respect and attention even when leaving you behind.

 If being there for all of it  isn't living  than I don't know what is.  I thought that maybe I wanted to grieve because I wanted to be in a state of unrequited love, or maybe I fell in love with a "bad boy" whoI knew subconciously never love me back. But, here is the point, I loved him and therefore I was real, and I was involved, and  I was courageous. Even though the ultimate outcome was not what I expected, I was there for all of it.  I hate it that the pain still returns. And once in awhile when I feel the stabbing heartbreak, I cuss or breath through it until I forget it again.  I read something  recently that made alot sense when it comes to grieving: When you love with all you have,you grieve with all that you are.