Thank you next (Pt 2.)
Yes, it's still about my exes.
I have found the most profound life lessons are taught by love. More than anything, experiences revolving around love, shaped me into the woman I am today. I spent many nights feeling alone and yet, I chose to allow myself to feel the pain. I understood that in the place of pain, my wounds reflected.
I yearned for romantic love. I was fifteen years old and the pureness in me believed that I was adult enough, like many other teens around me, for the whole thing. I wanted to lose my virginity and I only had one condition. It had to be for love. This intention saved my childhood and innocence. Only now do I appreciate this. I thought I was doomed to a life without romance and all the fun that goes along with it. Although I met my high school love when I was 16, he was involved with another girl. He was a friend and lived across the street from me. I was always prudent and desired a real romance. I didn’t want to come second to anyone. I had waited patiently for love, and when it was time, love avoided me and chose another girl to hang its arm over.
I knew that if I wanted this to happen at some point in my teens, I needed to “put it out there” but not by flaunting myself like others did. I used my willpower and intention. It was not a clear intention and the outcome that came from my first relationship was messy, but I managed to allow the condition to be kept I was also still at the tail end of my teens, so I felt like I had almost accomplished what I sought after. As the unfolding happened, the entire experience felt like a failed event that catastrophized the theme of love and made it revolting to want another relationship. Around the time it ended, I promised never to be fooled in love again. He was possessive and a decade older than me. I thought I had met a man compared to the boys I had crushed on before. This resulted in a hazy yet bitter taste that I mentally blocked out. I felt used and taken advantage of, it was an ugly feeling. I felt betrayed and resentment towards him for years afterward. Thinking that romance and love could be so promising and finding that as it all began, it was utterly dreadful.
From that point on, I decided to take full control of what kind of experience I was after. There was so much intention that was placed into choosing my love experiences. I intended for each relationship to enter into my life as it did. Noting each person would be an addition to a grander story. Each love, romance, or friendship would be a small piece in the large mosaic I call relationships. I decided to allow myself the opportunity to choose the experience I desired. One by one, analyzing what that specific relationship had brought me and what it was all for. I dare say, that things started to spice up and get more wonderful from that moment on.
I had fun relationships but there came a point in my early twenties where I didn’t care much for fun anymore. I wanted to test my attraction potential. I thought that if I was going to date, I should have someone I truly desired. I decided it was time to go for a gorgeous man. In committing to my decision, I was torn. I thought it was shallow and not the point of meeting someone. Looks meant nothing, yet, I was looking for something familiar. I wanted to feel an inner spark. Then, I met the definition of desire itself. He made my entire body quiver and the inner spark entered in with a new sensation. Desire took reign. I had in an instant understood the definition of pure lust. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. We both went to art school in San Francisco. He was tall dark and handsome. I found myself in disbelief that he would even look at me with the same interest and feeling I had for him. He was instantly smitten with me as well. The class stood in a circle watching and we stood across from one another. He, nor I dared to blink. We were only across a room, but the room fell silent, we looked at one another and said it all.
The eyes spoke and said,
“ I want you, kiss me, taste me, smell me, have me, devour me.”
It was strange because I had always heard people talk about love at first sight, but nothing prepared me for this. It was not love, but it was a true acknowledgment of self. Somehow, I read him and felt nothing but authenticity. There was no assumption of games and although sex wasn’t even mentioned, it was like we could be truly naked together before even touching. I was used to being with very smart or skilled men. Ones that excelled in their passions and somehow had a spiritual connection with me that could not be explained. With him, life went from experiencing four senses to all five. It was short-lived at first, merely because I was positive that such electric feelings would be the death of me. Call it Catholic guilt, but my mind would not stop ruminating over all the things that could and would go wrong if I immersed myself in this very intoxicating passion that we experienced. I was terrified of the rawness of it all. After our first night together, he woke up one morning and asked me if I would see him again. He wanted to know if I had breakfast plans and I was in disbelief. I didn’t think that boys would stay for breakfast and a lunch date unless you planned on dating more. I was not interested in dating anymore, so this behavior seemed authentic and refreshing. He returned with a large take-out bag with Chinese food and we ate with chopsticks in bed. He wanted to keep seeing me after that day, but I did what so many people should never do. I ghosted him before it got popular.
Life went on, we both moved away from San Francisco and forgot that we had become Facebook friends. Now and then we would see each other active online and although I wanted to reach out and connect, I felt like I had nothing to say.
A couple of years later, I apologized to him for my behavior. That was the only thing that I needed to say. I was so proud before that I didn’t acknowledge that we had something authentic. I ran from it. Our chats were detailed and intense. Debating each other was our fun. We had long conversations about spirituality, philosophy, and existentialism. He was a nihilist for a long time, and I was an optimist. I wanted to make sense of the world around me and believed that everything happened for a reason, while he played devil’s advocate to all of my theories. We stayed friends after the apology. Throughout those years we saw one another blossom into an even more attractive and more importantly, interesting individual. We were both artists, and as artists make art, dreamers make dreams, and he and I made dreams of one day seeing each other again in the future. We both dreamed of being together in a tiny houseboat, relaxing in nature. We wanted to paint and write poetry while drinking wine. It all sounded so romantic. Life gave us a round two and it was the best and worst parts of us combined.
(Trigger warning: There is suicide ideation in this portion.)
I was back living in New York and finally living one of my dreams to make it in the city. I found a summer sublet in Brooklyn and eventually the term was extended and they asked me to stay longer as a roommate. He contacted me after 4 years of not seeing one another. He asked if he could stay at my house for the week because he had an internship lined up but needed to get housing situated. The internship provided housing but he’d have to wait for a housemate to move out and leave the room unoccupied. His apartment was a 5-minute walk from my place. This is why I do not believe in coincidences. Truly everything- happens for a reason. I had a friend already staying with me the week he arrived. They both slept on the floor of my medium-sized room. I begged my roommates to overlook the guests for a week with some lavishly cooked meals and a sparking clean house. I was determined to stay in Brooklyn. The rooftop of our apartment overlooked the city, and we had rooftop parties every weekend. The other tenants in the building had a weekend ritual and I was excited to have friends to add to the party.
That night he said,
“You know you are beautiful and so sexy, but I promise I won’t touch you, I’m here as your friend, but I’m not going to hide that I’m very attracted to you. I always have been.”
We made love almost every day from that moment on.
We had to sneak up to the roof, into the laundry room, and utilize any place to be alone. My other friend had no idea we were involved in any capacity. We were quiet, private, and above all else, we were just friends. It was the simplest truth about us. We didn’t need anything else.
There was always a pull to become more than lovers and friends. We found ourselves submerged in the other. We saw each other every day. We went to museums together, parks, walks, and movies, roamed the streets, drank coffee, practiced sketches and calligraphy, read poetry, drank wine, and cooked grand meals. It was like we were a couple, but we weren’t.
One night, my sister had come to visit me from California and we enjoyed revisiting the city as adults together. Our father had lived in University housing and we visited him in the summers as children. We reminisced about our old spots and I wanted my sister to give me an honest opinion about my romantic interest. I invited him to spend the day with us. They got along so well. We returned to my house to watch a film together and they both laughed and sang throughout the whole thing. The night finished with them crying together at the end of the movie. I started to think that maybe, he might be a good fit. We were best friends, my family liked him. The pieces started adding up. Then it happened.
He called me one night hysterically saying he wanted to die. My sister was next to me, and I was panicking. He was suicidal and was deeply depressed. He had no motivation, no effort worth living for, and ultimately, he felt he was a waste of space on this Earth. I left my sister at my house and went over to see him. I held him as he sobbed. He confessed that he felt suicidal often. He was pulled under by life’s currents. I didn’t quite understand that his depression was chronic until that point. He had been on antidepressants and therapy. Many people would try and “help”, but this was not my burden. Although I did not know what I wanted in partnership, I knew one thing for sure. I wanted a present partner and eventually a family. I had a low bar when it came to expectations, but there were two big ones: No addicts, and no chronic mental instability. I understood then that he had to go through something I was incapable of battling with him. I had just gone through a relationship with an addict, I was not capable of starting another relationship with a man who held so many emotional demons. He said to me that he could never commit to wanting to stay alive for himself let alone a family. I was distraught. It all seemed so wonderful and fun, till it wasn’t.
For a short time, we continued to be together. I knew he was returning home to Europe and I would also move back to California. We made the most of it. It felt like that time was a gift to us both. An invigoration of the senses and a grand finale to the unfinished time we had begun.
The day before he left, we made love all night and day. It was entirely consuming. We knew every inch of each other and appreciated the way we were. Non-committed but trusting that we would be there emotionally for one another. It was one of the greatest moments of my life. New York would have never been so full of vibrancy and romance had it not been for him. The desire that we experienced was so much bigger than just for one another. We shared a moment in time when the world was unknown to us, yet the pleasures of life were available in every way. We learned to enjoy even when it couldn’t be forever.
Till the next life, my friend.