Finding Forty, Day 23: Everywhere, But Nowhere

"We are done. Spend no more time thinking of me. It's over. We are done. Spend no more time thinking of me. It's over. We are done..."

These words, so cold and harsh, continue to loop through my head. My heart feels ripped from my chest, the blood and gore spread everywhere.

My friends read those words just as they are, as would anyone else. What I read goes something more like this:

"Sweet Pea, I love you, but we have to stop this. The only way for you to heal is to do your best to stop thinking about us and the love we share. It's time to move on."

I can see him while he says this, see the pain on his face, hear him choke back the tears as they stumble and fall in the base of his throat.

He looks at me and I see the depths of emotion, his inner struggle with knowing a truth and love as incredible as ours and being tied to a life that he likes just enough to not be willing to give it up or scooch over a bit to let me in.

I'm pretty good at the fantasy. This is how I want to imagine it happening. The cold, dead, lifeless words that he chose instead were to protect me and make a clean break. He wouldn't be that mean and blunt to me. He loves me. He was supposed to protect me, not hurt me, not take life from me.

But how is a clean break possible? Just a handful of days before he sent that email and deleted our account we talked on the phone, several times, totalling a few hours. We laughed, squabbled, breezed through our conversations with a comfort and ease that was amazing. We could talk for hours and even then, in those last conversations, he'd tell me he loved me. He felt like home to me and when I'd get down, I could envision myself engulfed in his arms, my head resting on his chest, as I inhaled his being.

That my heart would be ripped to shreds seems understandable, right? That my mind would be so completely and utterly confused, that makes sense, no?

"Spend no more time thinking of me..."

How do I do that when we've spent the last 20 months having some form of communication on a regular basis?

How do I do that when I see him everywhere I look? I wrote this a few months ago and it holds true still today.

He's nowhere
I keep looking in all the familiar places
But he's nowhere

Except he's everywhere

I can't escape him
Hard as I try

He's everywhere I turn
Every song on the radio
Every truck on the highway
Every pink and orange of every sunset

As I close my eyes
Each and every night
Hoping to find him in my dreams
He's nowhere

Come back

I used to sit in his lap when we were together. He's bigger than me, bigger than A, and he made me feel feminine and sexy. I'd lay my legs across his lap, sitting sideways and drape my arms around his neck. With our faces just inches apart, I'd study each and every line around his sweet, soulful eyes. He'd cup my face in his hands and traces the lines of it with his rough thumbs. We'd kiss and talk, but mostly we'd just look at each other and understand, without words, that what we were holding in that moment was something amazing. Something bigger and better, stronger and deeper than we could articulate.

"Spend no more time thinking of me..."

I have to laugh through these tears that fall. I never liked him telling me what to do and he knows that. I'd squeeze him for that, if only I could.

But, what's a girl to do? You can't make people love you or do anything they don't want to do. And, he's made it crystal clear, with those words, that he indeed doesn't want me.

Trying to unknow,
K