Hearts are broken every day
I don't even know where to begin. Wednesday afternoon, everything was great. I had relaxed and forgotten about my work stresses completely, downloaded music I had been forgetting to download for a month, I knew Devon would be having a good time with Diana + Justin, and a little while later, she'd swing by our house and we'd go to Institute together. Two hours later, the girl I love had broken up with me, and I was driving around Long Beach trying to figure out where I was going to sleep that night. I lost my girlfriend, lost my home, and since I know that work stress on top of that would just break me, I quit my job. I didn't want to but I know that I just can't handle everything at once. My whole world, every aspect of it, has been turned upside down, and I feel so lost that my soul is breaking.
By far the worst part of it all is losing Devon. And I don't even know why, really. The only thing she was able to tell my was that it wasn't working, that she wasn't getting all that she needed. She didn't tell me what it is that she was missing, or how long she had known this, or anything else that would have shed just a tiny piece of light on things for me. She did, however, tell me not to forget that she loves me, and that I'm the love of her life.
But what does that mean? I'm the love of her life, but instead of telling me what's wrong, so we can talk and see if we can overcome this problem, like we overcame the New Zealand problem, it seems like she just wants to forget the whole thing and give up. She's let go of me, just like that, and that is the worst feeling in the world, to be let go of so easily because you feel like maybe that person never really cared about you in the first place as much as you thought, if it's so easy for them to let you go. That same thing happened with Nora, but the difference is that Nora *didn't* care about my as much as I had thought at the time. She treated me like crap, too. I was always the one giving all of myself, 110 percent, taking care of her, supporting her, making sure her needs were met while ignoring my own. Nora gave around 25 percent, so the crumbling apart of our relationship makes sense. But things were entirely different with Devon, which is why none of this makes sense to me.
I remember when we were in Maryland, at Opus, we had gotten into some sort of fight; I had gotten mad or upset at something, I can't remember what, exactly, but I remember her telling me that she's not perfect, that she won't always be able to tell when something's wrong and that I need to tell her, so she can fix it. She's probably forgotten about this, but I remember it very clearly. We were sitting on the bed that we had in our room upstairs. It was afternoon, Malini was gone, preparing for dinner, and it was before Liz had moved into the room. She's not perfect, I knew that, and I never expected her to be. Because neither am I. Does it not work both ways? Why did she want me to tell her what's wrong and allow her the chance to make things right, and yet not allow me the same priviledge?
It's the most disorienting feeling, to have something I cherish beyond words being ripped away so suddenly, and not have any power to do anything about it. And I cherished her so much. She was the love of my life too, you know. I have never known anyone else so kind, caring, smart, funny, talented, sexy, wonderful, beautiful and just all around amazing. I still know that she's not perfect, but at the same time I know that there is no one else in the world as special and rare and precious as she is. And losing her feels like a piece of my soul has shattered and gone missing.
I'll never again hear her sweet, beautiful voice singing to me, never know the joy of making her laugh so hard that an hour later she's clearing her throat every five minutes from the plegm, never watch her knit some amazing creation, never maker her PB+J sandwiches, making sure the crunchy peanut butter and raspberry jelly are mixed together just the way she likes it, never put together a jigsaw puzzle with our two completely different methods, never see her blue eyes twinkle at me mischieviously as we sit together in Sacrament Meeting, never pray together before falling asleep, never hold her hand as we walk to the beach to sit at the cliff and share a silence together that doesn't need to be filled, never share a tender kiss every morning when we wake up, never spend an entire night making love, just to wake up in the morning and start all over again, never see her squint one eye and one eye only every time she yawns, never take random drives where we take random pictures, never stand and hug her and she starts to sway us back and forth like we're slowly dancing to a song only the two of us know, never drive Mulholland Drive at night in a dense fog where I hold on in the passenger seat and fear that we're going to plunge over the side of a cliff and Devon gives an excited and endearing, "Weee!" every time she hits a particularly sharp curve at 40 mph, never hold her as we spoon at night and feel her grab my hand from where it's resting around her waist and bring it up to her chest and cradle it firmly over her heart for the rest of the night... I could go on with this list forever. There's just so much that I had, that we had. So, so much, and now it's gone. All of it. Gone.
In addition to losing the love of my life, I've lost my home. I'm sitting here in my sister's bedroom, in my mother's apartment, feeling the most intense homesickness ever. I want to go home. This is not my home. My home is over there. 1*** Florida, Long Beach, CA 90802; that's where my home is. Where there's no parking, and loud neighbors, where there's Bill, Christina, and two cute cats that flee every time I enter the room, where there's a tiger-patterned couch that's yellow and no longer orange and a fridge with naked man-part magnets, where there's a shower so large and magnificent that I can practice my kung fu moves as I wash my hair, and where there are books, books, books, everywhere you turn. And also, Devon is part of my home. All of that is gone now too.
All I have left now is a small photo album of black + white pictures of Devon that I took, a folder with all of the letters and little notes that she's written me, and two pillows from our bed that overwhelmingly smell like her.
Oh, and the memories. Dear God, the memories.
Earlier today, I picked up Marlon so we could do something, and I took Bellflower down to Atherton, to get to his house. I passed near Devon's dad's house, which was just one street over and my heart clench cause I remembered the one night we spent over there and how we've been feeding Mama Cat recently while her dad's on vacation. I passed our UU church where Devon and I first met over 6 years ago. I picked Marlon up and started heading down 7th street and ended up passing Cal State LB, where I would drop Devon off at class while my car was on the fritz, and my heart clenched painfully again.
I sped up and got on the 22 to the 405 North, and told Marlon we needed to get the hell out of Long Beach if we wanted to do something because there are just too many places and too many memories that I just can't bear. I told him I felt like running far, far away, that I wanted to get as far away from the pain as possible. He reminded me that that's what he did, when his girlfriend of 4 years had come back from a vacation to India married to someone else. He immediately bought a plane ticket and flew to California, leaving Maryland far behind. He said that if I needed to, I could do the same thing, just in reverse, since he still has buddies in Baltimore I could crash with until I get on my feet. But then I pointed out to him that Maryland holds memories of Devon too. Of Opus, Camp Mardela in Denton, of our ill-fated trip to a beach in Delaware, where while stranded on the side of the road, Devon made a hotel reservation and I made a sandwich, of that spectacularly large bed in our Marriott Courtyard room, of the quiet nook in a terminal of BWI airport where we made a semi-fort with our luggage and cuddled while we waited for our flight. Marlon shook his head and said, "Oh yeah. Won't work."
So we take the 405 up into LA, and I drive around the city aimlessly, not really noticing what particular streets we're on at any given moment, until at one red light where I've stopped, I look around and realize that I'm at the intersection of Santa Monica and San Vincente in West Hollywood. Where the entrance to Gay Pride was on June 9th. Where everything between us started. I had to pull over for a few moments to just let out some tears. Then I continued down the street and remembered us walking down that sidewalk. Passed the parking structure where we parked at. Passed Pinkberry, where we went with Briana and Mike. This continued on all throughout LA. The two Dennys' only half a block apart from each other where we ate after Pride, Sunset Blvd. where she called her dad to see if we could borrow the Incredibles, and so on and so forth, and it occured to me that it doesn't matter if I leave Long Beach or LA, or avoid Maryland and Delaware; no matter where in the world I am, these memories will still be with me, and I will forever cherish them for the joy and despise them for the pain they simultaneously bring.
And I can't help but felt like things could have turned out different. I know that somehow, someway, I screwed up and now these are the consequences of my mistakes, mistakes that could have been avoided and I'd wouldn't be losing the greatest thing ever to happen to me. I have a guess on how I may have screwed up, but when I asked Devon if Tuesday night had anything to do with this break-up, she said no. I'm at a loss.
And I know that this journal entry seems like a long string of endless lists, but these are only a fraction of what remains unwritten, that's only in my heart and in my memory. The reason I wanted to write a large portion of the down is because there's just so much that I have to relieve some of the burden from my heart down onto paper. I have lost so much.
I feel like I have lost everything, and I don't know which way to go.
O God, help me.
By far the worst part of it all is losing Devon. And I don't even know why, really. The only thing she was able to tell my was that it wasn't working, that she wasn't getting all that she needed. She didn't tell me what it is that she was missing, or how long she had known this, or anything else that would have shed just a tiny piece of light on things for me. She did, however, tell me not to forget that she loves me, and that I'm the love of her life.
But what does that mean? I'm the love of her life, but instead of telling me what's wrong, so we can talk and see if we can overcome this problem, like we overcame the New Zealand problem, it seems like she just wants to forget the whole thing and give up. She's let go of me, just like that, and that is the worst feeling in the world, to be let go of so easily because you feel like maybe that person never really cared about you in the first place as much as you thought, if it's so easy for them to let you go. That same thing happened with Nora, but the difference is that Nora *didn't* care about my as much as I had thought at the time. She treated me like crap, too. I was always the one giving all of myself, 110 percent, taking care of her, supporting her, making sure her needs were met while ignoring my own. Nora gave around 25 percent, so the crumbling apart of our relationship makes sense. But things were entirely different with Devon, which is why none of this makes sense to me.
I remember when we were in Maryland, at Opus, we had gotten into some sort of fight; I had gotten mad or upset at something, I can't remember what, exactly, but I remember her telling me that she's not perfect, that she won't always be able to tell when something's wrong and that I need to tell her, so she can fix it. She's probably forgotten about this, but I remember it very clearly. We were sitting on the bed that we had in our room upstairs. It was afternoon, Malini was gone, preparing for dinner, and it was before Liz had moved into the room. She's not perfect, I knew that, and I never expected her to be. Because neither am I. Does it not work both ways? Why did she want me to tell her what's wrong and allow her the chance to make things right, and yet not allow me the same priviledge?
It's the most disorienting feeling, to have something I cherish beyond words being ripped away so suddenly, and not have any power to do anything about it. And I cherished her so much. She was the love of my life too, you know. I have never known anyone else so kind, caring, smart, funny, talented, sexy, wonderful, beautiful and just all around amazing. I still know that she's not perfect, but at the same time I know that there is no one else in the world as special and rare and precious as she is. And losing her feels like a piece of my soul has shattered and gone missing.
I'll never again hear her sweet, beautiful voice singing to me, never know the joy of making her laugh so hard that an hour later she's clearing her throat every five minutes from the plegm, never watch her knit some amazing creation, never maker her PB+J sandwiches, making sure the crunchy peanut butter and raspberry jelly are mixed together just the way she likes it, never put together a jigsaw puzzle with our two completely different methods, never see her blue eyes twinkle at me mischieviously as we sit together in Sacrament Meeting, never pray together before falling asleep, never hold her hand as we walk to the beach to sit at the cliff and share a silence together that doesn't need to be filled, never share a tender kiss every morning when we wake up, never spend an entire night making love, just to wake up in the morning and start all over again, never see her squint one eye and one eye only every time she yawns, never take random drives where we take random pictures, never stand and hug her and she starts to sway us back and forth like we're slowly dancing to a song only the two of us know, never drive Mulholland Drive at night in a dense fog where I hold on in the passenger seat and fear that we're going to plunge over the side of a cliff and Devon gives an excited and endearing, "Weee!" every time she hits a particularly sharp curve at 40 mph, never hold her as we spoon at night and feel her grab my hand from where it's resting around her waist and bring it up to her chest and cradle it firmly over her heart for the rest of the night... I could go on with this list forever. There's just so much that I had, that we had. So, so much, and now it's gone. All of it. Gone.
In addition to losing the love of my life, I've lost my home. I'm sitting here in my sister's bedroom, in my mother's apartment, feeling the most intense homesickness ever. I want to go home. This is not my home. My home is over there. 1*** Florida, Long Beach, CA 90802; that's where my home is. Where there's no parking, and loud neighbors, where there's Bill, Christina, and two cute cats that flee every time I enter the room, where there's a tiger-patterned couch that's yellow and no longer orange and a fridge with naked man-part magnets, where there's a shower so large and magnificent that I can practice my kung fu moves as I wash my hair, and where there are books, books, books, everywhere you turn. And also, Devon is part of my home. All of that is gone now too.
All I have left now is a small photo album of black + white pictures of Devon that I took, a folder with all of the letters and little notes that she's written me, and two pillows from our bed that overwhelmingly smell like her.
Oh, and the memories. Dear God, the memories.
Earlier today, I picked up Marlon so we could do something, and I took Bellflower down to Atherton, to get to his house. I passed near Devon's dad's house, which was just one street over and my heart clench cause I remembered the one night we spent over there and how we've been feeding Mama Cat recently while her dad's on vacation. I passed our UU church where Devon and I first met over 6 years ago. I picked Marlon up and started heading down 7th street and ended up passing Cal State LB, where I would drop Devon off at class while my car was on the fritz, and my heart clenched painfully again.
I sped up and got on the 22 to the 405 North, and told Marlon we needed to get the hell out of Long Beach if we wanted to do something because there are just too many places and too many memories that I just can't bear. I told him I felt like running far, far away, that I wanted to get as far away from the pain as possible. He reminded me that that's what he did, when his girlfriend of 4 years had come back from a vacation to India married to someone else. He immediately bought a plane ticket and flew to California, leaving Maryland far behind. He said that if I needed to, I could do the same thing, just in reverse, since he still has buddies in Baltimore I could crash with until I get on my feet. But then I pointed out to him that Maryland holds memories of Devon too. Of Opus, Camp Mardela in Denton, of our ill-fated trip to a beach in Delaware, where while stranded on the side of the road, Devon made a hotel reservation and I made a sandwich, of that spectacularly large bed in our Marriott Courtyard room, of the quiet nook in a terminal of BWI airport where we made a semi-fort with our luggage and cuddled while we waited for our flight. Marlon shook his head and said, "Oh yeah. Won't work."
So we take the 405 up into LA, and I drive around the city aimlessly, not really noticing what particular streets we're on at any given moment, until at one red light where I've stopped, I look around and realize that I'm at the intersection of Santa Monica and San Vincente in West Hollywood. Where the entrance to Gay Pride was on June 9th. Where everything between us started. I had to pull over for a few moments to just let out some tears. Then I continued down the street and remembered us walking down that sidewalk. Passed the parking structure where we parked at. Passed Pinkberry, where we went with Briana and Mike. This continued on all throughout LA. The two Dennys' only half a block apart from each other where we ate after Pride, Sunset Blvd. where she called her dad to see if we could borrow the Incredibles, and so on and so forth, and it occured to me that it doesn't matter if I leave Long Beach or LA, or avoid Maryland and Delaware; no matter where in the world I am, these memories will still be with me, and I will forever cherish them for the joy and despise them for the pain they simultaneously bring.
And I can't help but felt like things could have turned out different. I know that somehow, someway, I screwed up and now these are the consequences of my mistakes, mistakes that could have been avoided and I'd wouldn't be losing the greatest thing ever to happen to me. I have a guess on how I may have screwed up, but when I asked Devon if Tuesday night had anything to do with this break-up, she said no. I'm at a loss.
And I know that this journal entry seems like a long string of endless lists, but these are only a fraction of what remains unwritten, that's only in my heart and in my memory. The reason I wanted to write a large portion of the down is because there's just so much that I have to relieve some of the burden from my heart down onto paper. I have lost so much.
I feel like I have lost everything, and I don't know which way to go.
O God, help me.
posted by chosen at 10/26/2006
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