In jest I often ask people “how is this my life?”. I don’t expect an answer, and I hadn’t really taken the time to backtrack through Memory Lane, to find the series of events that have brought me to my current juncture. I was having such a moment though, when mid-conversation I became lost in thought. I started to replay my life in reverse. Yes, we make choices each day that dictate the course of our lives. But life is full of forks in the road, and a major change in trajectory doesn’t usually occur unprovoked. After some consideration, I thought I had reached my destination, or more specifically the person I blamed for my change in course, but after some brief reflection, I had to admit the catalyst was further back still. With a few more clicks of the time-turner, I arrived at my Ground Zero. I don’t believe in coincidence, so there had to be a reason that I decided to reflect at this exact moment. Somewhere in the back of my mind I must have remembered the date my life had made it’s sharpest change of course, the Trojan Horse that appeared to me under the guise of complete happiness, only to quickly pull the rug out from underneath, revealing the cosmic downward spiral that inevitably awaited me. On this day, sixteen long, chaotic, heartbreaking, tumultuous, incomprehensible, magical, devastating, crazy/beautiful, years ago, I set myself upon a new course. It started with a flood of joy, and ultimately drowned me in it’s wake, eventually to be born anew. For better, or worse, it led me here, to the person I’ve become…to the souls who’ve gained my love, and to mourning the loss of the open heart I will never be again.
A year before September 11th changed the world as we knew it, September 12th changed mine. It was the day I entered into my first relationship of adulthood. It was with a boy who over the next few years, would fuck my heart up so thoroughly, it is likely to remain my only relationship of this lifetime. Back then I couldn’t fathom that it may have been for a reason, that I would some day be grateful for what I suffered. Now here I sit, remembering that time with what can only be described as fondness. Not at the memory, but more the fact that it IS a memory. I have long released the pain. I no longer carry that sorrow. There were times when I thought I wouldn’t survive the ache in my heart, that it was sure to combust, collapsing my body in a heap of stories that would never be told. I lived to tell them though. I survived what I had told myself I never could. Not on my own, of course. I was fortunate enough to have shoulders to cry on along the way, hands to lift me up every time I began to fall.
And fall I did. Over, and over. Tears upon tears, upon tears. An unending flow of poetry that lead to the creation of my first website. Many late night phone calls, with kind hearts offering support, advice, and laughter. Little by little, piece by piece, I was being put back together. Slowly, but surely, I began to trust again…at least to an extent. I don’t know if I will ever again be capable of letting someone in completely, but I keep a microscopic handful of kindred spirits close at heart.
From that heartbreak love grew…and it was a grander love than I had ever known. It may not have resulted in romantic relationships, but it forged friendships that otherwise would have never been, relationships that I would be lost without today. It illuminated my strength within, which gave me courage to face the storms ahead. It extended my family in a way I never could have imagined, in a way that leads me to believe “the catalyst” was just that all along. He was a gateway for love to transcend from an idea of what it’s supposed to be, to what it is in it’s truest form.
Warm.
Joyous.
Unconditional.
The walls I put up are all that remains of that broken girl of yore. The lingering effect of an otherwise forgotten life. They have become such a part of me, that I panic if I sense them beginning to crumble. They have mostly served me well, saving me from mistakes that would be pointless to make. I can’t say that there haven’t been times when I’ve wanted to let them fall, but the fact that I didn’t, makes me think they weren’t meant to. Reminiscing now, the only sadness I feel is for the loves that never were. For the times I couldn’t respond with “I love you too”. Or discouraged it being said at all. And especially for when it’s all I wanted to say, but never could. I try to not dwell on the “what if” in life, but occasionally I do wonder where other paths may have led, with a heart that had never closed for repairs.
