XXXXXXXII
I miss the urgency we had about seeing each other—if we wanted it to be NOW it had to be now, it didn’t matter that in reality we simply had to wait for the next morning. I was completely at your mercy: I drove 11 hours in one weekend to see you the weekend of my senior year dress rehearsal. I skipped countless practices, hell, countless classes to see you. And I don’t have that urgency now, that pull. I love him, but not like this, never like this. And I wonder, will it ever be like this again or is it a first love thing that I’ll never feel again? Or was it not because or the first love entirely, but the nature of the insecurity of our relationship? I know one thing. I want to feel it again. It was rocky and it was hard and it was sad and angry but I want to feel it again. And maybe it won’t be like that next time. Maybe I’ll need to run to him or he’ll need to drive from New York to get to my house at 2 am and see me and I won’t feel such a pull and a loss when he’s gone because I’m wondering what he’s doing and why he never calls or answers and if he’s with someone else, but because I love him and can’t imagine living one more second without him. And maybe I’ll need to sleep over not because it’s convenient not because I’m tired because I love laying in the dark next to him matching my breathing to his. Maybe I won’t feel protective and sad and like I’m sacrificing a little bit of myself; I will be giving myself to him without conscious thought and he’ll be doing the same, and when I match my breathing with his he won’t break away to test me, to see if I do it again, he’ll be trying to do the same thing. It won’t matter what we have to do tomorrow or who we have to answer to because all that matters in the moment is that being, being together, not sexual or needy or emotional but deep and real and joyful. And I don’t know if this kind of love even exists or if it can last, or if it won’t leave a gaping hole at the end just like everything else, just like we did. Look, I’m still writing about you. I have so little to write about these days. Maybe with him my inspiration won’t have to come from the bad. Or the ache. Or the injustice. It will come from life as a whole. I have enough existential shit going on without having to look back at us for inspiration all the time. Please don’t mistake me for bitter, and I am not lashing out at you. I’m just looking for something new; we are the past and I still don’t know if I believe in reincarnation.
