Lights out Alice!
For some people, it is never about how long they stay in your life, you know they are going to leave a scar once they leave. More often than not, they leave sooner than you would like them to. But the inevitability of their exit from your life seems like a constant, like the setting of a sun, even when it is hiding behind the clouds and you cannot see it, you know it is going to get dark soon.
With people like these, who touch you so deeply, you know, as soon as they enter into your life, in the famous words of Taylor Swift, "I knew you were trouble when you walked in...". Add to this the fact that I would like to believe that I am perceptive on some level and can call out how things are going to play out while they are unfolding and things go from zero to hell pretty quickly. No, I am not delusional or overestimating my abilities. I am just another overthinker with a shit brain who thinks of all the potentially bad scenarios in every situation, cannot take any positive and prepares for anything going right by sabotaging it in the different ways he hypothesizes in his head they are going to go wrong.
Not all scars are bad though. Some you want to go back and see again, just to remind yourself of what you went through.
The smile. The gentle brush back of hair locks. The blushing that was accompanied by a forward head tilt. The genuine laugh at the lamest of my jokes. The caressing touch of her hands as she would endearingly shoo me away for pulling my usual shenanigans. The peace of being in the moment with her. Obviously I do not have any part of my future figured out whatsoever. But in that moment I tell you, I would fight tooth and nail, to my last breath to make it work, to make her stay.
It wasn't to be. She had to go away. I sit here welling up at the thought of what I lost. Not the friendship, no. I knew I liked her too much to ever be able to be just friends and I would have withdrawn regardless. I lost what could have been. O, how I could see for a moment in her eyes, her caring, loving dreamy, but also humongous (no, I am not that lost in my thought, I can still crack PJs) eyes, that she felt the same.
At first, or actually, throughout, I always questioned what she saw in a shitter like me. She was better than me in every respect and could have guys lining up across the alley who would be head and shoulders above me, both literally and in terms of acumen. In my head, I have always been used to having unrequited feelings for people, most of which I keep to myself because I see the other person doesn't see it on the same level and then let it pass. What was different about this was that I could see the signs, I could see how there was some form of liking for me. It baffled me, still does, that someone would actually like me on any level, and I all ended up doing was trying to find situations that would prove to my head that it was all in my head and I was imagining it.
My usual SOP post things ending, because they all end, sooner rather than later, is to figure out if it was just a in-the-middle-of-the-moment-thing (infatuation) or was it ever true. Did I just get caught up in the emotion of it all, or did I have sustainable lasting reasons for the same?
Was I just searching for anyone to be with and not able to see the flags or the long term part of it, or was it that I was able to take a look at the rational facts and understand the practicality of it all. To that end, the facts were simple. We were poles apart in terms of both beliefs and lifestyle preferences. But I always put up the counter, which I still believe in (which also makes me question whether I am still able to objectively able to assess it or not), that it was a gap that could be bridged over time. No, it would not be easy, but it wouldn't be particularly hard if the core equation, which is whether two people like each other or not, is aligned. Again, I don't have the future figured out and I cannot guarantee a tomorrow, but it was exactly this very understanding that gave me the confidence to turn around and say, if nothing is a given anyways, why can't I place my bet on this? Why can't I fight for what I believe in and give it a try and as long as you are there by my side, all I can promise is trying to make it better? It might not be a bed of roses everyday, but I will try to keep you isolated from as much as I can. Isn't that what grown-ups in real life do? Isn't figuring it out and working on it the very essence of what growing up is about? My engineering education always taught me that equations only work in a controlled setting and in real life there will always be parameters beyond our control. All that means is that there is no point trying to make anything fit a mould. Look at a situation ad-hoc, examine its merits, take into account the variables you can see, adjust for those you cannot and them for some that might show up later.
You make it work. It is not about the perfect person. It is about finding the one you would want to go through the everyday mundane with and making it work.
You know what sucks Alice? This wasn't enough to make her stay...she went away too...
In the end, they all left...
I wish you would have stayed, I would have fought...for us
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