I wonder if I will look back on these years from now, and think upon how young and unknowing I was back then. I'd laugh a little and feel the old pain and then move on, attend to new work, take on new responsibilities, and live my new life. Because the past is the past.
I don't say that with scorn or contempt or spite. The past is the past, but let me tell you a little bit about it. Let me recap you, future Rucha.
The next few parts are the secret things I wish for him to know at this very moment, but I realize that he won't ever read this (unless I cave and ask him to, which, knowing me, would probably be the case) and I sometimes wonder who does read these ramblings. Who is here who is not me who is tracing these words? Sometimes I wonder if there's anyone.
This is my closure, with myself and with what we shared.
We were magic, sure. Undoubtedly young and vivacious and devoted and lustful and just beginning to learn. Small fawns with their blinking bright eyes and shaky legs, trying to explore the world, happy in their youth. That magic was a bit misplaced. Apparent, yet unable to be ignited.
He was fine. And I say that in the old southern way, "that boy was just fine." As if fine could somehow represent kindness and respect and cordiality and graciousness and care and just about everything I wanted in someone. Maybe I am so new to love that I was entirely drunk in it. It was new, and it still is.
But I don't regret. Never. Because if someone brought you happiness at some point in your life and shifted you in some positive way, then you never, ever regret. I realized how hard it was for us to let go and the things we did to compensate for the loss. I understand it now more than ever, and truly comprehend why two people cannot quickly and simply be friends after feelings set in. Because feelings are both wonderful and deadly, simultaneously. They create and dissipate and leave a trail of true pain after you decide to take them away. Feelings make you feel things you wish you could feel for the rest of your life, and feelings also give you things you'd never want to feel again, not in a million years.
I loved for the first time, and my, was it something else. The pain stays, though. It doesn't seem to want to leave. It brings me to a precipice where I just can't breathe sometimes, yet it is the kind of suffocation that leaves no mark. It's a part of me now, albeit I am thankful for it. Because now I know I'm not pretending anymore. The pain is so real now and sometimes I feel like I can reach out and touch its cold surfaces and jagged edges.
I appreciated the parts of him that he was able to share. He didn't share much, but I loved every bit that I was exposed to. He was quiet and his mind seemed to be a deep abyss of confusion and solitude. One day, when he learns to truly love and open himself, he will feel what I felt. He will know that once he even remotely begins to accept who he is and become happy with himself, that true love can be. Because you can never truly love someone unless and until you love yourself. A simple yet forgotten philosophy.
Sometimes, in the darker parts of the night, I wish I could have been in his life when he was happy. So selfish, isn't it? That we could have been even more perfect than we actually were. But when you lost what you loved, sometimes the pain brings selfishness. Even anger. It can do that, too.
Of course the sight of his name leaves a funny feeling, but isn't all of that entirely normal? It sometimes surprises me to think, "I know we were different," but then somehow realize how normal we were. The problem itself was so simple. One person just could not give his all, for reasons that don't apply, but it takes two to tango. A simple equation, right? I still loved us, though. I am glad to say that I am letting go and allowing the grief to pan out as it should. Always one step ahead, Rucha. Even while you were young, you analyzed the shit out of everything. Hell, you even would sit in your room and have staged conversations with the imaginary him, pretending he was in front of you so you could get your words out and be content that your thoughts weren't gnawing at your brain. Even if you were just talking to yourself! You crazy little bitch.
I know for a fact that he won't leave my heart, but not in the misguided or sad or romanticizing-the-past sort of way. He will never leave because he taught me things about myself that I wouldn't have known if he didn't love me. That's special, right? Come on, you gotta give the guy credit for that. I wish I could've given him more than I did, something of value that he could declare: "this person changed me." But I am lucky enough to say that I showed him he was not happy. And I am glad that I could do even that much. Because someone as special as he deserves everything the world can offer him, and the moon, too.
I don't mourn these days for wanting the past back (well, at least not all the time). I mourn because of how beautiful he was and how beautiful we were and how lucky I was to enrich myself and bask in the experience of it all. I don't regret my first love. He was mystical and we reached a level of compatibility that I didn't even know was possible. Call it the honeymoon phase, but I don't think we ever left it. We were together for more than eleven months, and they were truly something else.
Acceptance is settling itself, but very slowly. I do feel glimpses of the light at the end of the tunnel every now and then, but it soon disappears and leaves me hollow again. Time will help, only time and that is all we will ever need. I wish I could still be his friend (in time) and aid him with no feelings, because how clearly you can think when you don't want to touch his face and kiss his temples and laugh and share air that only lovers can breathe. Yet right now, he doesn't need that. He needs himself. I don't want to leave his life entirely, but for the right reasons. With time. I want to help him as a friend for the sake of our sanity. With time. How simple things are when you take a step back and think with practicality, right?
He was light and fire and air and my Earth. The past is now not a painful shadow of what could have been, but a lovely memory of what was. And I secretly thank him every day, for he was divine.
