So in my typical geeky fashion today I found some old IM's that I had saved as a high school student. I don't know why I saved them, except that they documented important events and people and maybe some part of mew knew that six years later I would need to read them over and over again to remind myself of love and laughter and the friends I ran with all those years ago. Most of them were between myself and Josh, leading up to my graduation from high school and the eventual separation of two people who couldn't handle that separation in a mature way. Others were from exboyfriends (Brandon), and old friends (Brad and Ben and JP) about old friends (Andrew, Michelle and Dicko), and the hurts and wounds that we gave each other intentionally or not. That's all a part of life.
So is losing your first love, someone who will always hold a piece of your heart, long after the pieces are sewn back together. I'm amazed at the resiliency of the human heart... how it can be broken time and time again... smashed into a billion pieces and, strangely enough, crave and desire those feelings of love again. I certainly never expected to fall in love with Josh. For my first run out of the gate, I suppose he was the best possible candidate. I don't know if everyone else expected us to, because of how our friendship was or the way that we interacted. Looking back over those old instant messages (the technological age equivalent to letters tied together with faded ribbons), it's easy to see why I fell in love with him so many years ago, and why it ripped my heart to pieces when the relationship ended.
I have the unique point of view as the person who destroyed it. Everyone always has the story of someone who broke their heart -- the one who smashed it to smithers and destroyed all faith in love and joy. The truly ironic thing is, that person, was me. I destroyed it. I smashed (not only his heart) but mine too. I lost more than my first love that episodic day in late February.. I lost my heart and my best friend all at the same time. It took me a really long time to recover from that whole experience.
It's strangely prophetic how I said to him one day that some gorgeous girl would come along and be insanely jealous of me and break up our friendship, when what really happened was, I was the absolute epitome of the insanely jealous. I broke up our friendship because truthfully, it was our friendship that I valued most of all.
After picking up the pieces of my heart along the highway in between Auburn and Macon, I somehow remembered to live my life joyously, drunkenly.. and absolutely, unequivocally unafraid of being hurt, a position which I have found myself in recently. It is, ironically enough, the exact opposite of how I lived my life with Josh. I took for granted the boy he was and now, the man he has become.
I'm that girl... the one who destroyed the heart of one good man... and the one I was fighting against on that day when this was originally written... April 3, 2006.
If I could have just one moment of selfishness... I promised Kenil that I wouldn't bring up the past in the brief moment I was allowed to obtain some kind of closure and end that chapter in my life when Josh and I had lunch together, just about three and a half years ago, after my graduation from college. But as (at the time of this writing), Kenil and I are no longer... and the actual odds of Josh reading this are virtually slim, here goes...
The biggest, and most important thing I learned with the Josh ordeal is that you can't be afraid. Life has to be lived joyously, drunkenly and absolutely unafraid to simply be. Love is an absolute blessing. When you've been deemed worthy to receive it once, you're more than lucky to get a second chance at true love. There are so many things are missed out on by being afraid. And since I seem to need to understand that fact again, because I've found myself in a similar situation... there are so many things that you miss out on by being afraid. The fears of my past absolutely cannot rule my future. I cannot be afraid. I only get one chance at life so what is the use in being scared? If I'm only afraid of being hurt... and usually the outcome is that you'll wind up being hurt, so it's sort of a sick, ironic twist. I gave up the best relationship I had in my life at that time because I was afraid of anything. I lived my life through fear. I couldn't -- and wouldn't -- take a chance on life, on love, on Josh and everything he offered me because I was, basically, stupid. Don't be like that. Friendship is the basis of every relationship and we should all be so lucky to have something or someone mean as much to me as Josh did. To be given the opportunity of love -- honest to God, fearful, painful, hurtful love -- is a gift that should be enjoyed, no matter what setting it comes out of.
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not who I am today without the influence of the two men that I have loved. One was a boy, and one a man, but both, regardless, have influenced my life in such a way that (and to say this is completely cheesy and not very unique, but whatever) I could never have turned out the way I am without them. I realize that's a crappy way to end this, but that's all I've got. I'm different. And I know that eventually, as it did with Josh, the pain will subside, as it already has begun to. It's not a struggle every day to put one foot in front of the other.
And I'm grateful for that. I know that somewhere inside of me I have turned a corner, which I'm thankful that it only took four and a half months. Sure, sometimes it's more like one step forward and two steps back, but its still progress and constantly putting that foot in front of the other and moving on. My heart is healing, slowly, with the blessing of friends who just simply let me be me and make me laugh and forget about the dying pain that is still somewhere within the shreds of my heart.
And so I'm grateful to them too, and I hope that they know who they are, because names need not be mentioned here in this public forum. I have a wonderful cache of friends who are amazing in their simplicity and their ability to make me remember how to enjoy life and help me to get back to that stage of living joyously, drunkenly and just being thankful for the people that God has placed in my path.
No comments:
Post a Comment