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.
These are the moments
You know how in movies, they show a montage of the couple being happy together and having fun and being ridiculously cute, etc.? And it’s usually followed by some hardship that they have to go through, and they have to hold on to the happy memories and the strength of their bond to make it through, blah blah?
Well.
That’s where we’re at. At the happy part, I mean. I feel like we’re making all these happy memories for this random montage to be played in the future where we can cry and say ‘oh those were the days’ and be nostalgic.
We randomly went out last night, and we ended up going to this island nearby and wandering down to the fancy hotel bar and sitting by the fire for a bit then walking on the beach in the waves and making out and being so incredibly romantic that it hurt. Then on the way back we stopped by a place where they make ice cream and were romantic some more and I fell even deeper in love with him.
It’s odd, because I’ve always known him. And yet… now I know him. I love him more and more each day. I’m glad, because in the beginning, I thought “well yeah, I love him, but if this is it, I’m worried.” But everyone says you love people more as time goes on. And it’s true.
I feel so strangely protective of him sometimes. He’s never cared what people think, but I always have. It’s good for me to be with him because he helps balance me out… and vice versa.
in shock
Discovered several things this weekend.
1) My best friend lied to me. Also she likes to share my deepest, darkest secrets with other people.
2) He already knows my deepest, darkest secret. (and let’s be honest; I hadn’t decided if I was ever going to even tell him. I was actually leaning towards the deathbed confession-type scenario.)
3) He knew this about me before we started dating. Before. And yet he still pursued me.
4) He loves me. Me. With the deep, dark secret and everything.
5) I am completely, totally, head-over-heels with the most wonderful, amazing, perfect-for-me guy in the world.
6) I am going to marry that man.
So I’m sorry; I haven’t done much more writing. I’ll post what I have in a day or so, but it’s very rough-draft type material.
