Closure comes quickly.
Steve and I ended our relationship Friday. Coincidentally, it was my last day at the office I've been at for my insofar Enterprise career. A day for endings.
It surprised me with how immediate and powerfully I cried. One big wash of tears, like Noah's Great Flood, pouring out of my heart and wetting my cheeks and covering my blouse in salty drops. The separation has been there for so long that I thought the eventual ending wouldn't be so devastating, but even the assumptions made by ourselves about ourselves can still make us look like naive actors on a great stage, suddenly unknown to the person we thought we were.
Sorrow was swift, and passed almost as quickly as it came. A tornado of mourning, and then a great lifting. I think there are a few reasons for this. One, Steve and I have come close to ending it a few times now, so I know that as soon as the first time happened my heart began to prepare for the worst. Also, he believes with conviction that a new job would make everything better, and holding on to that longer than I already have would make me a level of pitiful I'd rather not ever be. I said simply, "A new job will not make you love me back," and that was it. That was all the honesty of our relationship poured like steaming Turkish coffee into a glass and shot back in one gulp, pungent and true and inescapable.
It was initially such a hard conclusion to come to because Steve is wonderful. As a person, he is phenomenal, and having to end a relationship over circumstances and how one deals with those circumstances is usually something reserved for more established commitments. He didn't treat me poorly, or cheat on me, et cetera. He was simply not there, and I'm not inclined to the dynamics of a long distance relationship when we live 20 miles apart. I was so lonely. I just wanted to have my hand held, you know? Is there something so terribly dependent or wrong with that? And yes, I know the answer is no.
Enter Aaron. My friend from years ago, my other half, the person who my soul connected with on such a level that we were inseparable for over a year. Who, a month or so ago, shortly after I cried to God that I needed a relief from this confusion and turmoil, is suddenly hanging out with me. Long, filled-to-the-brim days with nothing but smiles and hugs that lift me up and swing me around and make me laugh like a joyous child I don't remember knowing.
Always respectful of my relationship, we didn't fall into our old habits of hyper-affection. On Friday though, he refused to let me be alone. I'm coming to get you, he says. You're not driving, you're not worrying, and we're doing anything you want to do. I need to be with you when you're sad. It hurts me when you are.
And that is what love is. That's what I have been missing for too long from my life. We go to dinner and the Shakespeare festival in Redlands, which was notably terrible. I didn't get a snide comment, or a complaint, or any type of negativity. Just an arm around my shoulder and a hand holding mine and smiles into the curls of my hair.
Yesterday Milla and Aaron and I went to Faire and had a long wonderful day. Full of friends and innuendos and kissing and laughs and hugs and everything that reminds you: this life is one of a kind and worth living as if the children of the future are looking to your demeanor as a lesson of what happiness is. Exhausted, we come home and lay in bed, deciding to watch a movie instead of go to dinner. There is the head on my shoulder and steady breathing and warm arm around my waist that tells me loud and clear I am worth touching, worth intimacy in all of its forms, and if someone can't give that to me, it is their issue and not mine.
My last blog, Unrequited, came from a dark night in which I couldn't seem to get my back warm and in my half-sleep, I reached behind me to pull my warmth to me and no one was there. Last night he was, and I slept closer to God than I have in longer than I care to think about.
I feel strongly that Aaron is a gift being given back to me. That our lives couldn't support our connection those years ago, but now we can. I'm reminded that I didn't seek out a relationship then, because I had everything I could want in terms of emotional support from him, and going back to that place of beloved contentment is not something I'm going to chalk up to coincidence.
My heart is screaming gratitude in a more visceral and primal language than I could ever voice.
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