The Folly of Thought

I've spent the last week thinking very deep and rather stupefying thoughts about the people I love.  Not just the people I've been in relationships with but also the people who are my friends, who I care about deeply.  Over here, it never ceases to amaze me how much I both miss people and feel liberated.  What I mean by liberated, you must understand, is that I have the freedom to examine past mistakes and past behavior because not only is it in the past- it is in a past shared by people who are at least 4,000 miles away.  But that's the irony in it.  Because, while examining that past and all the things I think went "wrong" - it's those people I miss the most.  The ones who stuck around and stayed by me.  The ones who ensured my survival.  I've spent the past year in almost constant turmoil over one thing or another.  School.  Work.  Men.  Family. Money.  I've been given a life that many people would kill to have - but I wouldn't wish it on anyone.  Or at least, not the way that I have lived it.  

In the end, my thoughts always go back to him.  I ceased to love him a long, long time ago.  That much is clear.  And I am far better off without him than I would be with him - I knew that a long time ago too. 

 So why, then, would my thoughts go back to him?  

Because he represents the one thing that I have always truly wanted and have never attained.  That miracle that happens when two people realize they actually want to be together for the rest of their lives.  That one person who holds your heart in their hands, but it's ok - because you hold theirs.  Finding that one other person in the world so that you won't be alone in the dark.

It saddens me to realize that with him was the first time I felt anything akin to womanly - sexy, confident, attractive.  For a while I thought that we might actually have a chance.  For the first time, I almost felt like I would get to live a 'happily ever after'.  

It's not that I don't believe that I'll ever find it - it's just hard to walk alone right now.  

So, in the process of saying a final and thorough 'Goodbye' to him, I think instead of my family and my friends - and how much I need them right now.