I can't remember

I guess it's a good thing. I guess it's time's way of healing. I guess it's the heart and soul's way of moving on.

I sat at the picnic table, looking at him. The great thing about sunglasses is he wasn't aware of how long I was watching him. I was watching her too. The enemy, the competition, the winner of his affection. I realize that I like her. She is funny. No longer the evil other woman. My connection to her is now stronger than my connection to him. It's her number I dial when I want to know if they'll be home for dinner. It's her that I ask if they plans for the weekend. It's her I beg to come and play in the pool at dusk. It's her that I sneak away for a hot fudge sundae with.

He has gotten old. That's the only way I know to describe it. Not in the way he looks but in the way he acts. He hates people so he refuses to go anywhere there may be people around. A ride to the mountains is much preferred over a day at the beach. And that's ok but once in awhile go with the flow. He used to say that he likes to go out. He likes to visit friends. He likes ballgames and concerts and movies. But the truth is he doesn't. For me, I'm happy sitting home 29 days out of 30 but on that 30th day I want to get out and roam. Not him, he'll sit home on that 30th day as well as the other 29 days.

As I sat there watching him, I couldn't remember what it was like. I know we have shared some intimate times. I know there has been some mind blowing activities. I know there was a look on his face, in his eyes as his hand covered my heart and promised it was safe with him. It was that look and that promise that completely drowned me in emotion. For years that look and promise were all I remembered. I couldn't see past it. I couldn't see the truth. The cold hard truth that he was never going to chose me. He was always going to love me (in his own way) but never chose me.

I sat there, looking at him. Looking for what used to be. Suddenly I felt so void. Suddenly I realized I'm no longer in love with him. I still love him, we do have a special bond and I guess we always will, but my heart doesn't thump and leap into my throat when he calls. His voice doesn't send shivers down my spine. My dreams are no longer filled with him. The ache, that was so sharp and acute in the beginning and became a dull throb, is now non-existant.

When we got back home he asked if I wanted to have a drink with them. I declined and excused myself to my room. No longer hungry for every chance to spend time with him. But I was hungry, starved for the memory. I looked back through my mailbox. In the sent folder I found it. The letter I had sent to Nanner, the morning of the first time we had been together. It was all so raw, so passionate. I described in great detail exactly what happened and how I felt about it. Damn...I was making myself hot just reading it. But I didn't feel the wave. The huge emotional wave that always comes over me when I think about him and what was and what could have been.

Ok.....2 1/2 years of yearning and longing and crying and weeping and utter loneliness have given way to healing. Have given way to friendship, in it's truest sense. We are finally on the same page, he and I. That page that involves friendship and affection for each other but nothing more. That page where we both know we'd help each other if we can but we're not in love. We're not making plans. We're not hoping. I'm not hoping.

I don't know what to fill my mind up with now. The empty feeling is exactly that. It's like a restlessness. It's like an antsy feeling. I'm worried. What if I never fall in love again? What if no one falls in love with me? What if that was my last great love? (even if it was all in my own mind)

How do people go years, sometimes a lifetime without those feelings? Without the hunger to be with someone? Without the heavy weight of love yet the vaulting freedom it brings? How am I going to go on? Am I really better off with unrequited love than with no love at all? Or vice versa? Maybe I am the one getting old. Maybe I am the one I should be staring at and viewing for the first time.