Past

Despondency enveloped me from the very second my eyes opened this morning. I lay in bed, unable to get up, unable to feel, but I took advantage of a millisecond in which I felt okay, rose up and left the bedroom.

With a heavy heart, I brewed two cups of coffee and sat on the couch feeling as though this day really isn’t any different from any other day in which I yearn for my husband. I have a problem with the word “husband” today. It’s not my husband that I miss. The person I miss came into my life long before my husband.

I was reading an Ellis Paul interview online a couple of minutes ago. Ellis is the folk singer that I had never heard of in my life before I began dating Chris. Now his existence is as big a part of my life as my love for Chris. The interview detailed his foray into music, his growth and his song writing. With my heart still heavy, I enjoyed the article, selected an image of Ellis for my computer desktop and pondered the possibility of listening to one of his CD’s.

Curious as to when the interview was conducted, I scrolled to the top of the page and read October 4, 1998. That’s what started it.

I hadn’t even met Chris yet. I was going to meet him three and a half months after that interview was conducted.

It has been a little under a year since I last convulsed, punched, kicked, hit, scratched, screamed and blamed Chris for leaving me. I have temporarily shelved my instincts in order to record what I’m feeling right now.

I wanted to punch my own eyes out. I wanted to scratch my face until it bled. I screamed out all of the stock grief reactions including, “I hate you!!!”, “You left me!!!”, “I’m fucked now!!!”, “I can’t do this without you!!!”, “Why, Creejie??!!!, Why??!! Why did you leave me???!!!” and a host of others. I’m sure I haven’t uttered the last of them.

Why can’t I scream like that in my sessions with Clay? It’s always only when I’m alone and nobody can help me. I scream for Chris to come back and help me but that is never going to happen. I want him to come help me so badly.

I have such vivid memories of our courtship. His brown corduroy jacket. Our hands holding each others’. The love. His peaked interest in me and mine in him. The unspoken decision to be with each other. The way our bodies were drawn together. What it felt like to not be alone. To be fool enough to think I would never be alone again. What the fuck was I thinking? I’m such an idiot. I’m such an idiot.

Time just keeps marching on despite my brain’s desire to shut it down. The further time gets,the farther my memories of the most beautiful relationship I have ever had the pleasure of being half of. It isn’t fair. I’m a good person. Why was everything in the world that mattered to me taken away? I can’t go on. The pain is too great. The feeling of knowing he was mine filled me with so much comfort and love and kept me in a sound state for six years. I never dreamed it could all end. I never dreamed that a rising folk singer could symbolize my entire relationship and the death of half of my very being. It’s dead. I’m carrying around charred, black, rotting, dead matter with me everywhere I go. It’s never going to end. I need him. And I no longer believe he’s with me. I feel deserted, alone, damned, an outcast of society. I feel raw.

How can 1999 be gone? How could it have happened so long ago? How could two people curious enough about each other become friends, fall in love and become two of the same people be split apart by a force greater than all forces?

I’m never going to find the same innocence in a man that I found in Chris. We were two young people enjoying learning about each others’ hearts and minds. I feel old now, while he will remain forever young. For the rest of my days, we will continue to grow apart.

I had always planned to look back and smile, with Chris by my side. Now I can’t seem to look back without falling into the blackness of having had no idea it was all going to end in six years. It was always going to end in six years. The joke was on me.

I’m so mad at the universe. I didn’t deserve this. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to sit here, sobbing, shaking, gagging and hating. I don’t know how to put love back into my life. I’m blinded by visions of Chris by my side, walking with me, kissing me, softly speaking in that “we’re just getting to know each other” tone, the smiles, the sweet surprises of uncovering truths about each other and being delighted by those truths. That all happened so many years ago. It’s all over now.

Shame on me for rating my life based on the presence of another human being, and not based on who I am from my inner core. He made me awesome. He made me loved. He made me not alone.

I can still feel how I felt six years ago, five years ago, four years ago, three years ago, two years ago one year ago and today. In fact, the past is all I can feel today.

Beyond what was, I have no feelings. What will be feels much to disrespectful.