unfamiliar

June was a tough month for me. I’d say I went through a lot, but I managed to stay in survival mode the entire time, and feelings don’t seem to exist so much when you’re just going through the motions of your own life, week after week.

“Where’d all the bruises on your legs come from?” my mom asked me two summers ago, during one of the biggest transitional phases to date.
“I don’t know.” I told her, “I’ve just been drinking a lot.”
“Ugh. This is my least favorite version of you.” She told me on the porch of Tim’s guest house one morning.
“I’m just going through a lot.” I reminded her as I avoided her glance. “It’ll be over soon.”

A few weeks ago I was crying in your sister’s backyard.
“When you find the right guy, you’ll know.” She told me. “You have to stop wasting your time on the relationships you know aren’t right.”
“I just don’t think I’ll ever love anyone more than I loved your brother,” I told her. “I’d never been more sure of anything in my life.”
“He loved you a lot, too.” She told me, “That was obvious.”

Two weeks after I moved out, I asked to come back to pick up a laundry basket of clothes I’d forgotten in the garage. I got there after work, and used the garage door opener on my visor when I got there. I put the basket in my trunk, and then used the stairs in the garage to go up to the house. The first thing I saw was a garbage bag of photos I’d wiped off the fridge door in unmitigated anger, magnets and all. I’d thrown the photos into the trash bin in the garage when I’d left. Our first photos together of when you would visit me in the bay on the weekends. Photos of brunch with your parents. Photos of our camping trips. Photos of every holiday together. The photo Jessica took of us, slouched over and asleep in each others arms on her couch on your 37th birthday.
“You’re keeping these photos?” I scoffed with a twisted face.
“Yeah,” you told me, without looking up from the dinner you were preparing for yourself.
“You don’t wanna just pretend none of this ever happened?” I asked, sourly.
“No. I don’t.”

I saw you a couple weeks ago for the first time in two years. I wanted my anxiety to overwhelm me. I wanted my nerves to make it hard to breathe. I wanted to get so nervous I barfed. I waited and I waited and I waited, and as your truck pulled into the driveway I didn’t feel a single fucking thing. You let yourself into my back gate, and I wish I had been so nervous I started rambling about nonsense. I wish I had been so nervous I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. We stood there, 3 feet away from one another for the first time since I moved out, and I couldn’t feel a fucking thing. I chased after your beautiful blue-gray eyes trying to get them to impale me, and you wouldn’t even make eye contact with me.

Recently I came across copies of the letters I wrote to you. I’d stuffed them into the top drawer of one of your cabinets the day I moved out. I’d been living part time out of my car, and part time in one of the guest rooms for a week at the time I’d written them. I’d already signed the lease to my new place.
“I found your letters.” You text me, a few weeks later. “Probably the most honest thing you’ve ever written.”

I had so many favorite things about our love story. The way we met. The way we reconnected. The way we immediately signed a lease together, and neither of us had any second thoughts on it. The way we pushed each other to not only pursue our dreams and hobbies, but turn them into a means of financial income. The way we built our house together. The way we could just exist with one another without any doubts, without any anxiety, without much work. My absolute favorite memory though, was waiting during the evenings for you to come home from work. Hearing your truck pull into the driveway, and dropping whatever I was doing. Before you had a chance to even close the car door behind you, I’d already wrapped myself around you, and we’d just hug for a few minutes. We’d just stand in our driveway squeezing each other. Relieved just to finally be together again after a day of being apart.

How could something so pure, be so tragically irreparable.