Near Break up

I lied on the grass listening to him counting the ways we were not right for one another. He could not come up with much. He thinks I did not want him enough.

I couldn’t even if I tried. He did not need to know that.

He wanted to try the no sex thing. Just friends. I said, “well that’s good but I’m out. I don’t want that you know that already.” 

He did not know what to say so I said, “let’s go. The sun is coming through the trees. It’s getting too hot.” 

We got up and I did not extend my hand to hold his. He was lost without holding my hand. I could tell because he knew that was not what he wanted.

I think he wants a bit more than what I could give him. “Something is off sexually.” He would say. I think I knew what it was. I’m too aggressive. He’s a Type B kind of guy but he wants to be in charge like everyone is. But I was once very aggressive, and when that ended, I was very laid back and he did not want to take the lead. Round and round we go.

We went to see flowers, then shopped at the Farmer’s Market, I was not happy to return that street. But he did not mind and I was trying to be supportive of it. I told him why I preferred the other neighborhood. But that was his neighborhood too. I couldn’t pick a worse location to date a guy.

He was looking at me, all pained. His eyes conflicted and I think he might cry. So I hugged him and said that I should get going. Packing everything up and leave. For good. I did not want this to end this way but there was nothing I could do. So I hugged him. The goodbye hug that came too suddenly, that surprised both of us.

“I had a lot of fun. I enjoyed this. This weekend. And many others before this. I don’t want this to end.” 

“Neither do I. We have a lot of fun together. There are many good things about us.” He began to back down on the imaginary break up.

In his imaginary world, I should be dating a marathoner, someone different than he. I knew because I began to get to know him. He was never really secure about this relationship. I think he suspected that I would move on one day anyway.

“But what if I don’t want anyone else?” I answered.

“I’m not going anywhere you know. I’m here. You do know that I care about you and I want you to be happy right?” He began to babble.

“I’m happy with you. Don’t leave me.” I began to plead.

“okay. I’m not leaving you.” He conceded.

I unpacked all those imaginary belongings I had scattered around his place.

He watched me cry. I cried like a baby. In this world, he was the only place that I felt safe and sound. He was the only one who I could trust. He was the person who was both my fan, my mentor, my father, my brother, my lover. 

He made the rest of the world seemed crazy, because when I was him, all I ever wanted to do was to enjoy the simplicity of it all. 

I had no one to count on. I had never been with a man who cared about my happiness. No one to kiss my forehead and tell me everything would be all right but him. 

In his arms I slept and slept night after night. I lost count on how many trips we’ve taken how many dates we’ve been on.

No one knew about us. Not his friends, not my friends. 

It’s self contained and untainted by the outside world.

I intended to keep it this way. 

“Promise me to stay with me.” I said.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He answered.

I knew what he did. He wanted to know that I would be affected by this decision. He tested me in his passive aggressive ways. He wanted to hear from me that I would not bail. 

No man had ever cared for me. They wanted what they wanted from me. They were ashamed of me, they hid me in the shadows. They disappeared from time to time. They were not forth front with me. They lied and cheated and they took from me. 

But he wanted me. It was really that simple. I chose him because he wanted me in his life.  And even then, we were always walking on tight rope. I was, anyway.

For now, we are okay. For now. 

Chase Ghost

Sorry internet for the delayed writing. It's not that I had forgotten to write, but I think more now and write less now.

A wise man said this to me once, "If you have nothing pleasant to say, say nothing at all."

I've been practicing that mantra. At work, in personal life, even when I'm alone. I try to think of a nice, pleasant way to describe things, a situation, an event, a person, and if that fails in my head, I think some more, and when all the thinkings are exhausted, and nothing good came out of that, I park it and move on.

It helps because I think anger is a wasted energy. Hatred too, for that matter. We all have to learn to move on from people, from situations and from our own past. But we all do that in different ways. Some men find women who are like their mothers, so that they could relive that trauma or abuse; some men find women who are totally different from their mothers, so that they could break free and be their own person. Some men had fond memories of their kind mothers, and they treat women nicely not for show or for pursuit but because that's how they feel towards women who reminded them of their mothers. At the end of the day, how you are and who you become as a man are tightly related to how your mother raised you as a child.

I hope to be a good mother to my son. Loving but not without discipline. I hope he's strong and confident and self sufficient. I hope he finds his mother loves him and gives him plenty of space to grow into a young man.

I have not succeeded in all of my endeavors. I failed pretty miserably in the adult love department. The only feeling that could describe how I feel is how humiliated it had made me feel. The man who I thought loved was not who he was, but beyond that, I am nothing to him either.

One moment he said that he loved me, the other he tried to erase me out of his life. He's ashamed of being seen with me, being with me, and he's ashamed of his desire for me.

I always thought that I could pick up the phone and talk to him, like that we were adults, but I couldn't because I realized that none of that made any sense. There was never any communications involved. I simply was not important enough. I had to believe that somewhere deep in his soul he loved me, or I had wasted my time all those years, but is it possible that I chose to believe it or I'd feel even like a bigger fool?

I think at some point, we are all just very exhausted. I'm exhausted from being so invisible and chasing a ghost. He's exhausted from all the anxiety I had given him. No one really needs this any more. I've been chasing a ghost. All is well in the end. Ghost vanishes. I'm left with nothing to chase. I'm returning to the normal. He's no longer in my life.

I purge images, emails and memories out of my head, body and soul, and in the end, I remember nothing at all. My undying love stay unclaimed and forgotten. He was not really there to begin with. His feelings, no matter how much I thought were genuine, were simply mood enhancers in the bedroom, declared by whispering into my ears just before he climaxed. Me feeling ridiculous at the end of all this was the only thing that was real.

Next time I run into him in those frequent streets and shared neighborhood, we are perfect strangers. 

Profound Sadness- Re baselined

Had not seen him for a while. He was waiting. He showed me his new running shoes. He pulled me in to kiss me gently. Then he pulled my panties off my stockings off and spanked me hard, leaving hand prints, He then entered me from behind.

Always the same sense of urgency, always the same way to fuck me. Always, the same. It's been nearly 4 years. It's been 4 years since we've been together.  The same romance. The same urgency, the same feelings, but deepened, like true love.

This feels like true love. A love story that has suffered it's fair share of headaches. A love story of a life time. I wished him to live a long time. He said, only if you live as long as well. What if he dies? What if I die prematurely? Can I go on? Can he go on? What if I would but I'd never be the same again? What if he would but he knew a part of him would be gone forever?

He held me after and told me how much he loved me. Thousands of my photos yet he still finds me beautiful. He has never felt this way before. He liked women, he likes women, but he loves me. He loves to kiss me, to fuck me, to talk to me, to go to dinner with me, to be close to me. When he fucked me there was a sense of urgency like he has not fucked for a while, or that he needed to be inside of me to feel real. There has been so much that had happened. I continue to struggle and he knows it too. He wants to know if I'd slept with others. I tell him no. He tells me that he's not been with other women. I don't believe him. I think he stopped telling me because he thinks that I would be hurt. He asked me if I would be hurt. I said, "yes." So he shielded me from that information. I told him that I knew he still beds other women. I knew because leopard does not change its skin. I know him well enough to know that he will always want to fuck others.

But he loves me and me only. If that's hard for others to understand, it's not that hard for me to understand. In truth, if and when I did fuck others, he was always at the top of my list. I'd drop anything for him.

"Why are you so good to me? You've always been so good to me." On this occasion, he asked that question. I said nothing this time.

"You know I love you. But I guess I have to show it." He adds. "Yes you do need to show me." I answered back.

In truth I know that I am now finally in the driver seat. I'm okay to let him leave me moving forward. I am okay with him no longer existing. I have seen the one outcome that I never thought I'd see, and that's the outcome that I don't exist in his life and he not in my mine, and I'm okay with it because in my looking glass, I saw not him with me in the end. I saw not him because my heart has been broken one too many times to accept the possibility that he could one day be mine.

In a way, when I don't look into my soul, and yes I do that when I finish yoga, I see a future, a happy one without him. But when I do look into my soul, I see profound sadness where he did not return to me as he was never mine.

I baselined myself. I have nothing but profound sadness.  And there, I sat. And waiting for sorrow, sadness and agony to pass over.

Love Affair of a Life Time

I had not seen him for 3 weeks. I did a short count, and it was just over three weeks. He had missed me, I could tell. He wanted to know where I was headed, I told him San Diego and he wanted to know whom I was going with.

For a man who did not interact with any of my friends, he surely knows a lot about them, or of them. I tell him everything. When I saw him, I naturally wanted to go down on him which he later would comment that many women did not like that. I used to wonder about how many women he's been with while dating me, but now it did not matter. I knew that he would date and that dating others would not result in the same outcome.

Surely enough, he told me that for some reason we are a perfect physical match, he finds me beautiful, that he will never meet anyone like me, not even close, is what he said to me. I think I believe him, there is no reason for him to lie about something like this. He has me. He knows that I love him. There is no reason to tell me all these things to keep me around. I'm around. He knows that too. He tells me these insanely romantic things because he loves me. He says that he likes being with me, my nakedness against his. He wanted to take me to go somewhere, in May. I think he will make it happen because I think on an annual basis he likes the idea of going away and having me there with him.

He shows me photos of him when he was a baby. I took a photo and he did not like it. I told him that it's for me and me only. One day he'll be old and I want to take care of him. And I want a photo of him when he was a baby. His mother made that baby book for him, written in German. She was a very Germanic woman, Bavarian, and I like my Bavarian man just so.

We laid in bed after he fucked me. As usual he tells me things. I liked that. I used to have so much anxiety around him. Last September was when it peaked. Then by January of this year I was finally to feel a sense of peace.

When I think of him, and wish that I could be with him, my eyes well up.

When we talked hypothetically if we were together, I told him that I might get bored. "Then you'd find another guy. I'd have to find a girlfriend. I don't want to find another girlfriend." He did not like that idea very much.

Today he told me that no one will ever love me as much as he loves me. I asked him why and he said because I know you so well. I know you the most. 

I WILL NEVER MEET ANYONE LIKE YOU AGAIN. NOT EVEN CLOSE. 

He said. He does love me and I know it now more than ever.

It's not the love one would experience day to day. But it's the only ever lasting love I've ever felt.

I told him imagine a day we'd be together. Finally. Be together. He could not imagine that. He just likes to spend time with me, from time to time. I want to spend time with him, day in and day out. Take care of him. Be his one and only.

You know how much this really hurts? I want to tell him that while he loves me, I fucking get heart torn out with the thought of him not with me. I HAVE NEVER LOVED ANYONE FOR THIS LONG.

Imagine a love affair of a life time. I once saw a girl whom he was affiliated with holding a sign that says "I want a love affair of a lifetime." She did not get that from him, sadly, he loves someone like me, but I think I might have stumbled onto the love affair of a lifetime.

Now all I could really do, is to walk away.

Sunday Afternoon

He walked with me, in his backpack, he packed my 5 inch heels, my Roots wallet and my phone. He carries them on his back so that I could be free of carrying anything at all. He cared about me that way, he also liked that I was free handed, so he could hold my hand and walk through the park.

He was tall and had long arms, I'm short with short arms, our hands barely touched, yet he held mine tight. When I saw him, I often rested my head on his shoulders, we embraced like that often before we were set out to do things.

I greeted him with little kisses, planted on his mouth, through his beard, beard that he grew just for me, for I liked men with beard, men with beard turned me on, I liked older men and he was older by only six years, yet he looked so much older, for I looked younger than my age.

Poppies and rhododendron were blooming in the park. We took side path, path less traveled, across the fields and onto Cole Street. He asked along the way as to whether or not I'd traveled this way, I said, "no", and he was satisfied. He liked to show me new things. I showed great ignorance around his neighborhood, for I had not been to this side of town much. My experience was mostly around hipper neighborhoods and yet his neighborhood breathed life. People were less transient. They set roots like he once did, and they never left.

He put our names on the board, the wait list was long. He used my name because it had 4 syllables and his only had one.  We waited in the shade under a tree and the wait was lengthy yet I did not care about the first thirty minutes. I enjoyed the sun and the warm Sunday afternoon, where he held me with his arms and occasionally kissed me by lowering his head, I felt his mouth on my forehead.

I knew he adored me though he'd never admit that.

At nearly 2 PM we were seated. He asked for a bloody mary and I asked for coffee. We sat across from one another in a small cramped space, and enjoyed our meal. Said very little of anything. We were so different, I spoke so much and yet he spoke so little. He asked several times if I liked my food. After food in my tummy I was visibly happier, and he took that as a sign of an approval for this restaurant. He knew how I liked the food just so. With him, dining was always adventure.

When I went to the bathroom he searched for change in my wallet and found a $10 bill and added it to the tab. When I returned he said that he had gone to my wallet and fetched $10. It's less than what I owed, but he often made sure I paid less. Sometimes he paid for me all together.

We took our leisurely walk to the bakery down the street and fetched sweets. He bought things for me and we then took our stroll back to the park, finding hippie hill and sat ourselves down and ate the treats.

I laid sideways, my head resting on his thighs. I told him that I was his girl. He was happy to see that. When I came out of the bathroom I caught him looking at me, making sure I knew where he was sitting, and when he knew that I had recognized he turned away, pretending that he was not worried. I knew he cared about me. In his ways, and that made me happy.

People asked me about him. All I could say was that he made me happy. He's not handsome, he's slim and tall, he's losing his hair, he did not have any fancy degrees, he had a boring profession, he was into playing music, he did not have a fancy car, nor owned any real estate, he was simply an old bachelor who had never been married and who was used to being alone.

Yet he took me in. We got up eventually to go home, his choice, not mine. We walked all the way to his house where we rested some more. Both naked and in bed, in his bed, my favorite bed, we fell asleep after sex, his hand holding mine. When I woke up I did not want to wake him, so I let him continue holding my hand, while I closed my eyes and listened to him breathing.

Such was a Sunday afternoon. It was the first and only afternoon like this I have had in nearly 20 years. I don't know who he was and why he came into my life. But here he was, the one and only who made me so happy and so content. I would trade a lot of my worldly possessions, to be with him.

All because he was the first person in my life, who took me out on a brunch, held my hands, and napped after.

Failure to obtain happiness

Under no circumstance do you ever admit failure. Failure not to obtain happiness but to feel happiness in your heart. The desire for happiness is there but you cannot feel it. The only you ever felt it was when you were in love with the man in question. Then you had to stop.

There is a PROFOUND SADNESS inside of me. When I realized that I would never be loved back the way I wanted to be loved back, I realized that I had failed. That gapping hole could not be patched. I knew because I was only in love once with another man like this in my early 20s, then when I shut him down I shut him down permanently and never looked back again. For years I could not feel much, every piece of emotion was just some random dots and you felt obligated to feel more but you couldn't.

When I saw him and started to talk to him, even just in a matter of hours I knew that we were linked somehow. He had thousands of photos of me, and he wanted more. He liked to collect photos. He liked to think we are from another decade, we met when we were kids. We reconnected when we were adults. We knew each other so intimately so perversely and we loved one another yet we were not together most of the time.

He's tired most of the time. Exhausted, with his children with his wok and sometimes with his friends. He wanted me to give him one thing and one thing only, sexual satisfaction. And now that I was more relaxed around him and demanded nothing in return, he was treating me like I was his confidant. He told me things. How he was annoyed by his mother, stressed out about her, how he was coparenting with his partner, that he respected her and there was a relationship, albeit not a romantic one. He liked to compare his relationship with her, the children's mother like my relationship with my husband. We both have a set of obligations. We both need to fulfill them.

He talked about his work, sometimes more dire than others, feast or famine. He talked about his business and how he was a majority shareholder of his company, essentially all of it was his. He worked hard, every morning waking up at 5 to work. And then when he was not working, he took his son to soccer, played with his younger man and signed up for different races with his older kid, who liked to run. He knew that I ran long distances, ultramarathons. He liked that about me.

We then talked about work. About what I did and things he did not know. I told him that I needed to hire a vendor to build training modules but I couldn't afford him. Our work world converged. He was interested in learning about HIPAA compliance. I told him what that was as he thrusted himself into me.

He liked to think about unusual things. He liked things that were unusual. He wished that he could fuck me when I was pregnant. I could no longer carry children. He liked me chubbier. He told me how beautiful I looked to him. When he fucked me he wanted to crush me. Like his entire weight was on me. He wanted to fill me with him. Like we were one.

He said that he had not heard from me. I told him that I had not heard from him either. Previously he'd go through a week without writing back to me. But now if he did not write back to me, I often stop writing back to him. A taste of his own medicine. I move on as if he did not exist. But I know that our body and soul were linked and he knew that I was waiting. So he would write and see if I could see him. I knew more about him. I knew that he felt bad that he was fucking others when he was on the road. He knew that it made me sad and thus it made him feel sad.

I did not tell him about my life, for it was not important in this context.

I often pondered if my chance to happiness is left and gone. My ideal life would have been with him. I knew how much I loved him. I knew how much I craved him. I knew this world would have made more sense if he and I were parents to two children, a boy and a girl. I knew he'd love them and gave them what he thought was to be the best for them. I knew that they would be beautiful.

But in this life, we have nothing. We each have our own children. We each were trapped in our own creation. We each loved each other. We each could not be together. I would never meet his friends. He would never meet mine. We only have each other. The secret would go to graves with us. And I was denied of happiness, and that's how my life shall be. I must go on. And pretend everything is okay. Find contentment and joy. Find other ways to live my life so that I could stop feeling sorry for myself. 

Profound Sadness

He arrived home. Tired. From flying. US Air. He said. With a transit from Charlotte. It was not an easy flight. He was up since midnight to get home by 11 am. He slept for two hours and woke up. She arrived just before 4:30 PM.

He had not changed. He would be fifty in 4 months. He was tired. He was the same with the exception of having just cut his hair. He used to be beautiful, she knew that. He's still beautiful. To her. he said he used to be better looking, always getting laid, always looking to get laid, but now he was older and was unable to spare time to think about getting laid. And people stopped paying attention to him anyway, he's just some other dude, some older dude.

She looked at him in that light. His eyes were squinting. He looked tired. He always seemed tired.

They spent a lot of time lying around, being tired. Sleeping. That's their M.O.

He was tired and unable to make decisions. So after sex they went to grab dinner. He wanted somewhere proper and quiet. He was interested in seeing what the Italian place offered but ended up with Sushi. She was more hungry than he. As of late, she had put on some weight, he had liked that about her. The heavier set of her. She wanted to lose more weight but that was difficult to accomplish. She tried to stay in shape and not worry about her weight gain.

He was talkative, and had a few things to say, both in and out of bed. She was more relaxed so that made him more relaxed.

He used to be so anxious around her. He's anxious about everything.  He said that's how he masked depression. She did not want him to be anxious about their relationship. She knew now how to manage. He reached over the table to say how much he liked that.

He walked her to the car after the meal. He kissed her and said goodbye to her. She said, after he was already heading to his door, "I love you." Loud.  She wanted to do something for his birthday. She wanted to go away. She wanted to travel with him to places.

She loved him and she needed him to be in her life, so that she could be replenished.

All her profound sadness, gone, when she's with him. When she's away from him, she sensed her sadness coming in. That loss, that permanent loss. How could you tell someone that you loved that person so much so that each separation created a scar in her unhealed wound? How could you tell that person that in her world he was the only one who's ever mattered to her and she loved him more than he'd ever know? How could you tell him that your profound sadness came from that girl who fell in love with him, so many decades ago and now back again, so many years later, she could never move on until he's no longer in her life?

She loved him. She's sad without him. She's profoundly sad when he's gone. And she had to find a way to move on.