Love on Top of Him

You’ll find someone else. A common thing to hear after break ups that can actually be more annoying than helpful in those moments. F is someone that I believe I will always love deeply. I can’t compare anyone else to him because I will never find someone just like him. Perhaps a new love will share similar qualities that are important in a relationship for me, but I’m never going to find anyone even remotely close to who he is. I need to stop comparing or looking for him in someone else, and open my heart to something completely new and different.

About a month ago, when he and I decided to take space again, I told him something in the end of our conversation that I’ve been thinking a lot about. I told him that I had to learn how to fall out of love with him. Whether this is true, or even possible, I don’t and can’t and may never know. I go through up and down moments trying to understand or decide, and sometimes I feel overwhelming peace and other times I freak out inside. It’s very unfamiliar for me to love something or someone so much while being close to them, but not be as close to them as I desire.

I received an email today from a wise and wonderful older friend that made me understand and feel more peaceful with these inconclusive and confusing feelings of love.

“It might sound crazy, but you can love another man as well. And by that I don’t mean settle for someone else, I mean really love someone else, start a family with him and love each other so much. I think you will always love him, but don’t let this love stop you from loving someone else. It’s possible. I know this is probably the craziest thing you ever heard.”

Crazy? Definitely. But I also sense deep truth to this. The difficult part is, as she says, allowing myself to love, and actually getting there.

I actually do like someone else. Someone completely different than F. We’ve stayed up into the night listening to music through cyberspace together for the last two months, and when I went to visit him, I told him how I felt. And despite the complications in my life right now, he likes me too. However, I am so damn afraid of hurting him if we get closer because of this burning love deep in my heart for another. I know that right now I can’t begin another relationship, I don’t feel ready, but I really enjoy what we share right now. I even have some signs of early crushing, like butterflies and smiling whenever he writes me. Of course it would be nice if I could feel ready to be closer to him sometime… but not right now. And I don’t feel the pressure that I have to decide something like this, because we are on opposite ends of the country and won’t see each other again for a few months.

So I can sit back and try to relax in my feelings and feel peace with the possibility of falling in love, even despite the circumstances. I can take this time to love myself and create peace and awareness within myself, so when the time comes, I can follow my heart… in love.

Home and… the Insane Asylum

I grew up in a beautiful wooden house in the forests of north Idaho. For those of you who aren’t familiar, and I’m assuming most of you aren’t, north Idaho has some of the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen. The towns and communities are surrounded by four mountain ranges, lush forests and the fifth deepest lake in the country. The seasons are rich with winter, spring, summer and fall, something that I could never learn to appreciate in my adolescence.

I remember driving across the two-mile long bridge just as winter began to show itself, the lake frosted or partially covered with ice, light fog settling around the mountains and the sun peeking through just enough to give the winter a warm glow. I lived there until just the beginning of high school. I remember waking up in the mornings of autumn to the sun shining through the trees, our lawn still wet from the frost that had touched the night before, and Andrés Segovia playing throughout the house that my mom and dad built with their own two hands. It was a magnificent house and I lived there until just before my freshman year of high school. My parents had separated and made a difficult decision to sell our home and my sister had left for college and I was just beginning the shit show of my adolescence. It wasn’t just one change, it was many. And I realize that since then, I have never felt home anywhere else. Nothing since then has ever felt stable. It’s been nearly 12 years and nothing has quite struck me as “home”. Since moving from north Idaho after high school, I’ve lived in two (beautiful) states, five cities, and thirteen houses. The explanation is simple, I am just not comfortable enough to ever stay.

Except for now.

What is it about this country that makes me feel so home?

The landscape. The way the sun highlights the frosted fields in the morning. The rainstorms. The sky. The seasons. The forests.

My friends. Their families. Their wooden homes surrounded by forest. The feeling of togetherness and friendship and love. I’m so fortunate to have one of my best friends here, S. She makes me feel comfortable and connected with life and all of her friends are just as amazing as she is. It really comes to no surprise that I would want to live here. I’m surrounded by some of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. Everyone is part of a consistent, loving and stable group of friends and family. It’s beautiful.

… And then, there’s F. The person behind the reason I am here to begin with. He’s also part of the north. His family also lives in the north, the Wedemark. He’s also friends with most the people I’ve become friends with. While I think to myself, can he please get the fuck out of my life, I also think, can he please just not think so much so we can have a sustainable friendship? I am so drained. I am so annoyed. And it’s making me hate him.

Is it okay to hate him right now? I swear if I see one more “:)” or little jolly comment pop up on my iPad about his fucking poster I’m going to lose it. I love it just as much as I hate it. Because I can’t be myself. If I were able to be myself and not hold back from having a normal conversation, it would be fine, but we’re apparently taking space, again. Which to him means happy faces and little comments. And honestly nothing I do or say can be authentic. I don’t know what this means to me. I don’t know if he’s pretending or if I’m pretending or what is going on. And part of me cares, part of me doesn’t want to care, and part of me can’t care. I don’t know if he know’s that he has made my life a circus for the last eight months. Just always waiting for him to grow up and find that perfect little space for me in his life.

When am I going to grow up and understand that I don’t need him in my life, that there is no perfect space where I fit. This feeling of home is going to get stale as long as I’m kept on the table next to his incomplete puzzle. I’m just afraid of something…? Saying something too concrete and regretting it. Doing something that actually makes it harder for myself. Jumping to a conclusion when I’m emotional. There are a lot of things that I just don’t and can’t know that have really kept me in the “I’m here for whatever” position. I’m starting to feel like I need to stop dragging my feet and do something. I just don’t know what.

Seasons of Change

At about the same moment I notice the seasons transforming the lush green leaves into fiery reds, oranges and yellows, I notice a transformation within myself. My life. Although I’m not completely moved on from the man I thought I’d loved, and may not be for quite some time, I feel a sort of calm and light happiness. But not the same happiness that I had felt before. I’m happy now in that I am here for me. The feeling of living in Germany for an us, or for the possibility of there ever being an us, is slowly dissolving. Replacing that feeling is now the feeling of living here for myself and making the decisions I do, not for a we, but for a me.

I’m strengthening my independence without a partner, something that I haven’t done in about ten years. I’ve had a few long relationships and a warm body for those times in between, but not really more than a month or two by myself. I find most of my relationships are healthy and I’m not a girl who thrives in co-dependent relationships. To be honest, this is the first time I’ve really felt “broken up” with. About time, right? It’s definitely interesting being on this side of the pendulum. And for the first time since my ex and I broke up, I understand why he talks to me the way he does when we have our chats online. Really, there’s just not that much to say or be enthusiastic about. It’s not that I don’t care, I’m just kind of at loss for words when we try to have a “normal” conversation.

I’m making great friends here. My best friend from the program, T, lives less than a minute from my door and my friendships with my German friends are growing and developing in ways I never would have imagined on my own. I’m heading up north tomorrow to spend a few weeks with my fiancé (Ms. SP) and my friend in Hamburg who I’ve developed a really fun and interesting, connected friendship with.

My leaves are changing colors with the season, and I can feel that soon after their complete and whole transformation, they will fall off and make way for more opportunities for current and new friendships and relationships to grow, my relationship with myself to grow. Is my fear becoming my reality? Am I actually starting to feel okay with having a relationship with him that is less than what it was? I guess what they say is true, that the only thing to fear is fear itself.