The tragedy of memory
Just kidding (about “oh happy day”). I guess the pain is still there, just buried, and it takes another medium to bring it all screaming back to the surface again. This time, the medium was “The Fountain.”
Sometimes I think that memory is one of the greatest faults of humanity, the tragic flaw that allows us to hold on to bitterness, resentment, unfulfilled desires, anger, sorrow, grief and hope. Yes, I would even consider hope a tragic flaw, because it brings so much pain to our lives when it is left unfulfilled or broken.
I can’t watch The Fountain, or listen to the soundtrack, without my heart breaking all over again. We would watch it together, he and I, as he would trace promises onto my skin and wipe away my tears, promising that we would be like the immortal lovers on screen, finding one another through time over and over again.
I will never forget the sound my heart made when I discovered that he had… well, amongst other things, knocked her up.
I cover up the memories with anger, bitterness, even caustic humor, but there is still deep, wordless pain there. He hurt me, broke my heart, abandoned me, only to resurface again with a new life, sheepish apology on his face as he watched my world fall down around my ears.
I thought that he was The One. I had thought that we were supposed to be together, and we’d live in a perfect little house and raise children and fight and grow old together. We were going to live on the island, and he was going to buy me a piano, and our kids would walk to school while I was a wife and he taught as a college professor. (Maybe I was trying to recreate my own childhood, in that future. After all, we were all much happier.)
Then.
Suddenly I was no longer innocent, no longer believed in happily ever after or even love at all. But the memories were still there, haunting, hurting, tearing me apart. I forced myself to move on, to grow up, to repress the memories.
And this damn movie brings every single one back, sharp as the first time I experienced them.
I need the boyfriend to hold me, tell me that everything is going to be okay because we won’t fail, that he would never leave me, that our love is for life.
But I know that I need to heal. I need to push through the hurt and pain by myself so that I can believe him when he tells me that this is real, this is the lasting good love. I don’t want to use him as a crutch, I want to be able to trust him fully.
And as time goes on, as our relationship grows, I find the past hurts slowly healing with each new experience, as he slowly proves just by living that no, he’s not going to leave me and yes, he does love me more than himself.
Our love may not be the insane tilt-a-whirl crazy ride of ups and downs that I had with him, but it’s the Good, solid kind that is going to last.
And I need to remember that, no matter what.
Being human is no fun
…sometimes.
There are moments when I realize that my dog is infinitely happier than I am.
There are also times when being human means we make mistakes. We experience pain. And, since we haven’t reached enlightenment (yet…, or at least I’m the last to know), our past can still bring us pain.
For example: I’ve been in a few relationships. Since they are in my past, it is safe for you to assume that they failed. And unfortunately, most of them failed miserably (actually most were spectacularly awful). They failed for a number of reasons, but they each had one thing in common.
There was always another woman.
And yes, these experiences have changed me. I have grown from each encounter, I believe into a better person. However, there is one drawback: I have become a jealous person.
It’s painful to realize. I used to be carefree. I used to skip blithely through life, uncaring who my significant other talks to, works with, hangs out with when they’re not with me…. I didn’t care. I figured, hey, they have chosen to date me, so what could happen?
But after the first decided to leave me so he could date his co-worker, the second admitted that he was in love with his best (married) friend and she was leaving her husband for a trial separation so they could “see what happens,” and the third actually slept with his ex behind my back and got her pregnant, (then decided to “do the right thing” and marry her) (God he was such a winner), I have become slightly jumpy.
After all, they say that the only common factor in all your dysfunctional relationships is you. (or something to that effect.)
So it isn’t too hard to understand that I would be worried when his ex comes up often in conversations and likes to stalk him online and just so happens to remain involved in many of their past social activities.
Ugh. Love is hard. It’s difficult to care about someone, because then they have the power to hurt you.
A cautionary tale
I regret:
…letting go of the one who cared enough to try to understand me, who would massage my feet after a long day, who took me to the beach for our break-up scene so that we’d have a suitable backdrop for the emotional turmoil and pain we were experiencing.
…falling heedlessly into a series of relationships (to use the term loosely) with men who cared little for my mind and even less for my soul, and losing a piece of me each time.
…allowing someone to seduce me easily, with beautiful words and poignant memories, who effortlessly twisted me into his personal plaything at his beck and call, leaving behind a broken shell after he lost interest.
…letting fear control me and allowing the opinion of others to weigh more than my own.
…choosing to follow another’s advice instead of my own intuition.
…remaining silent.
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Dear reader,
Don’t make the same mistakes.
