Maya Angelou once said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” With this, I wholeheartedly agree. Lately, when the hurt feels like too much, I have this unmitigated need to put it all on paper. The problem is, I have to give myself permission to write about the things I want to write about and then brace myself for the waves of emotion that will come as a result. I have to admit, I am much better at weathering storms when I can stand out in the downpour alone where no one can glimpse my tears. If I write about them, there is evidence forever that I am not invincible and that things hurt more than I prefer to remember or admit.
Plenty has happened even in the past three days, and I struggle with whether or not to put it all down in black and white, a permanent reminder that I am human and sometimes weak and sad and hurting. Most people don’t see that side of me. When things get hard, I work harder, hit the squat rack, and run lots of sprints. Everyone tells me I’m so strong and that they wish they could handle life’s “minor” hurts the way I handle tragedies. But they don’t understand that sometimes, it takes more strength to acknowledge and show your weakness than it does to push through.
Maybe it will be good for me to get the feelings out. As far as S. and I go, I keep coming back to some of the wonderful memories I have with him, the way he’s made me feel…and I wonder if it’s okay to let those thoughts come up and appreciate them for what they were or if it’s better to remember that things weren’t what they seemed and try to avoid any extra mourning if possible. Perhaps I shouldn’t have let him reel me back in the other night. I suppose we both had our moment of weakness, but I certainly don’t regret it.
He’s a good man. I wasn’t wrong for loving him, and I wasn’t wrong for loving him fully. It isn’t my fault that he hasn’t learned to return that kind of love, that he hadn’t had anyone do those things for him before. But Lord have mercy, sometimes it sure would be easier to chalk all of these things up to me being stupid or naive rather than admitting that you just can’t love someone enough to make up for their lack of communication, for them lacking the courage to give of themselves as purely and freely as you. God, I just thought that he was strong enough.
I can’t hate him. He wants to be in my life (and as he said last night, he cares about how everything is going with my job search and he cares whether or not I’m off “hurting myself”–i.e. tumbling, stunting, etc., he cares about my cat and my family, etc.)…and I just have to decide what is best for me. I usually cut people off after we break up so that I can actually heal. But if there is the possibility of us rekindling something later (if we both want it, which would remain to be seen, of course), I don’t want to shut my heart off completely to him. More than anything, I don’t want to lose him from my life. His presence, his voice, just him, make me happy and at peace even though we aren’t together right now.
I think, more than anything, I need to spend as little time thinking about him as possible and focus on accomplishing as much as I can, improving myself as much as I am possibly able. Maybe that will make the hurt go away, and one day I’ll just wake up and not need (want? whatever, either way) him anymore. Either that, or I’ll simply be carrying on with all these untold stories.