Monday, May 17, 2010

I Wonder If He Knows...



There have been a number of men in my life, most have come as quickly as they have gone and I’m no worse for wear, but there’s always that one. The one that handles your heart just right so that before your know it you’re falling into a pit of unthinking love: like falling through Alice’s dark rabbit hole except instead of dirt walls, empty rocking chairs and upside-down trundle beds there are floating pink and purple hearts, bright lights and fluffy clouds covered with rose petals. But despite these obvious differences, the inevitable landing at the bottom comes just as hard.

It’s been years since Doomsday (aka the day we broke up) but he is still in my thoughts all the time. Worse, he’s still on my heart. We haven’t spoken. We aren’t friends on facebook. I don’t go the places I know he frequents. We live 1,200 miles away from one another! But as hard as I try to erase his place in my life, it just doesn’t seem to be happening. He happened – we happened – and there’s nothing I can do to change that or forget it.

Now I’m not some poor schmuck who goes about her day all “woe is me”; I am “over him” per se – I’ve dated other people since ect – but for some reason he just touched me like no one else had done before and like no one has been able to do since. Simone de Beauvoir, a French existentialist and feminist who attempted to define the essence of being a woman, writes “The woman gives herself, the man adds to himself by taking her” (Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 659). I think this is why women have such a hard time of getting over a relationship. We've already had plenty of practice of letting go - of giving of ourselves- it’s the “taking" that's tricky and uncomfortable for us (the "taking" that he's conveniently so good at). But once he's gone, what do we do now? It's a bit like the empty nest mentality: who do we give to now? Women love wholeheartedly, unabashedly; it’s in our very nature to be nurturing and self sacrificing so when we give so much of ourselves to the lucky men who have stolen our hearts, we don’t know what to do with that energy, that desire to give, once they are gone. It's as if breaking up goes against our inherint nature, like abandoning those once under our care. It's why I can't stop the tender emotions conjured when I think of him. Why I would still desire to help him in any way shape or form if I could.

Penny Widmore (from LOST) writes to her love, Desmond, while he is presumably away in prison for dishonorable discharge from the Scottish Army. She writes to encourage him, saying: “Please don’t give up Des. Because all we really need to survive is one person who truly loves us. And you have her.”

I know he didn’t have much self confidence. I know he didn’t have much self control. I know he didn’t have a good family. I know he didn’t have good, supportive friends. I know he was insecure and confused with life. I know he longed for acceptance and approval. I know he’s since lost his job. I know he’s since lost a lot of his friends. I know he’s since let people he looked up to down. I know he blew a second chance. I know he has to be in a rough place right now. And I think about it all the time. And I wonder if he knows what Penny said: “all you really need to survive is one person who truly loves you.” And I wonder if he knows he (still) has her.

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