Catch Me If You Can
I lay in bed in the morning knowing it was a day meant for newness. The day when everyone sheds the happenings of the previous year and make promises to do better and different soon as the clock strikes midnight. But I woke up feeling the weight of all the old, heavy on my chest. I played the past year in my head like that pathetic movie we all dislike but somehow get sucked into. Anxiety became me, and I took one shallow breath after the other. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t get a lick of sleep all night… it was all too familiar, the hole inside myself that I just can never seem to fill. Or maybe it was because once again I had tried something new, only to come back to the very old. No appetite for the day, usually how it works.
Clock strikes midnight and I look around me as all the bells and whistles of the New Year echo hope and happiness and I can’t help but let my mind run back again to the same old question, what if you were here? What the fuck, what IF you were here… was that all it took? Closing the gap? I asked him this morning what his resolution was, and I only got “not to have one.” And then life moved on again and I didn’t hear from him.
Three years, that’s how long it’s been. Three insufferable years of tormenting myself between wishes and impossibilities. Between silence and screams. Between hellos and goodbyes. Three years of trying hard to fill the emptiness of you with everything else. How did I get here? And why can’t I just let go?
It’s why I let go of writing, the challenge of gathering my thoughts together through the fog was undoable. Nothing made sense while I was warped in his world. Do people even want to hear about it? Was I the only one going through it? Through countless conversations with both women and men who had loved and lost, crossed their soulmates only to learn they could never be, I learned that I wasn’t. I remember when my girlfriend asked me why I had stopped writing because it was the only time she felt someone spoke the words she couldn’t put together and then I realized, this was bigger than him.
Or worst yet, when he asked me why I didn’t write anymore because it was the only time I let anyone this close. So I asked him if that’s why he always disappeared. Was I that hard to love? And he said no, it was because worlds separated us in ways we would never understand. And here I am, finally seeing it for what it is. Worlds that will always separate us.
I was sure I wouldn’t hear from him in regard to the new year anymore than our brief conversation earlier, and that’s when the phone call came in. “Happy New Years my love, my moonlight, I just wanted to call so you know your Prince Charming is still here and will always be here.” No response because what could I say to that? “Thank you, come again!” Because we all know he will, the very moment I’ve finally let go. As if he knows I’m on my way to the next and has to make sure I can’t forget him. What’s with that? Was it the game? The hunt?
That’s what 2016 was about. He had stopped speaking to me after a very intimate and passionate conversation about “us” and “possibilities” turned sour and depressing. We deleted each other out of everything that would assist in reaching each other again and that’s when the silence made me it’s victim. Taking jabs at me every time I heard a familiar voice or even worse of them all, became mesmerized with the moon. That’s what he was to me, the moon. Because no matter where I was, how far I got, he was there. And some part of me believes he always will be.
Six months had passed, and there were times I found myself reaching for him, pleading for him to speak again, making negotiations with the moons and stars. Maybe this one, no? Okay the next one. Many moons passed, but nothing. So it finally settled in, it was done. He had most likely moved on, and my turn was next.
Six months to be exact, and it was a rainy New York afternoon when an unknown number popped up on my phone. I had spent the day exploring Central Park for the first time ever, with a notion I couldn’t make sense of in the back of my mind. It was the kind of notion the earth gives way right before making a move, the calm before the storm, the lightning before the rain. I knew it was him, so I ignored it. Two more rings, I guess I’ll pick up. First words, “hi, do you reckon this voice?” How could I not know that voice? I would know that voice anywhere and at anytime. And that’s how he came back into my life, only to torment me some more.
That’s what 2016 has been about, learning to love someone you know will never be yours, unconditionally. Loving with no expectations. No strings attached. Just loving, not a person, not a thing… but everything. I knew one day I would have the dreaded conversation that led to him discussing a partner or significant other and this past year I worked on overcoming the fear of losing myself in the revelations. We had come close, both he and I. I’ve shared stories and he’s shared stories. And through the pain, I’ve found the strength to still be happy for him, and smile for him, and wish him the best of luck. Not because I force myself, but because I’ve learned that when you love someone, you truly have to care for their well being. Even if it comes at your own cost. In this journey, I found an inner peace and hunger for the things that are bigger than he and I, or anyone else for that matter.
When the clock struck midnight, I set my resolution because as much as I admired his need not to, I was different. I looked at every year as a new beginning with all new possibilities and this was a special one. I have never been more comfortable and in control of my emotions. This doesn’t mean I am able to turn off feelings or pain or happiness, but that I have come to understand and appreciate all of it much more, allowing myself to feel it all. Knowing that in the end, all will be well.
A few weeks ago someone asked me what my ultimate goal in life was and my initial answer wanted to be success. But the more I thought about it, the more apparent it became that it was love. Not the romantic, relationship love, although that too wouldn’t be so bad. But the inner kind of love, love for the beauty and the beasts that surround us in this life and world. So my resolution became to explore and search for those things placed around me that made the little stuff, so much smaller. Through this I plan on shedding the identity I have for so long been so comfortable with and reaching for boundaries I never would have imagined. My new motto for this year, catch me if you can.
Xo,
Aysan
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