Starting from Scratch

I’ve managed to keep the same beautiful girlfriend for 4 months now, after spending nearly 4 years recovering from the last one. After dating her for nearly 4 months, I wondered why we never once kissed or even held hands. I assumed that it was residual feelings for Rebekah, the woman who still frequents my dreams with the man she left me for. Perhaps, I even convinced myself that I was over Rebekah completely, and I simply believed that my new “interest” in Morgan should not be taken to a physical level because of her age. Nineteen is old enough, but I am 25 and at times feel older still. No, the truth is and has always been that she treats me as friend. She has never offered a sign, be it a romantic glance, or even to move closer to me. Even hugs come at the unfathomable price of verbal request.

Tonight I learned a deeper truth, one that disturbs and shakes me to the core though I showed no sign of it in the timbre of my voice. She’s a hundred miles away this summer and we talk over the phone almost every night between 9 and 10. This conversation was a little different in that I’d been reading a science fiction novel all day, which caused me to dig a little deeper than the surface of our usual conversation. As of now, I’d suggest that some truths are better left unearthed, though once the shock has worn off I’m sure I’ll find them as liberating as John 8:32 would suggest. On a side note, I’m normally not a Bible thumper, but I had to correct myself when I nearly mistook scripture for cliche.

More to the point, she called me by another guy’s name. It was the name of her best friend, Justin who to her jealous observation is dating a different Rebekah. She began to panic, and I didn’t realize why, until she confessed that the only reason she and Justin are friends is that he doesn’t return her greater affections for him. To her knowledge, for the past 2 months I’ve been planning on driving 200 miles round trip to be with her on the 4th of July. It is an event that she has eagerly awaited. Meticulously planning out the hours of our time together, yet she will spend every day with him until and after then. I find myself torn between the loneliness of being with no one, and the loneliness of being with someone who wants who they can’t be with. Can I really blame her? I want to be someone I can’t be with either.

“Let’s take this one day at a time
I’ll hold your hand if you hold mine
The time that we kill keeps us alive.” – Rise Against

“We cannot make bargains for blisses,
Nor catch them like fishes in nets,
And sometimes the thing our life misses
Helps more than the thing which it gets.” – Alice Carey