breaking dishes

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

-dr. seuss

let's break it down a little, people.
brass tax. or tacks, depending on what you want to hang up.

the fourth and i dated for years. ten years, to be exact, on and off. he was my first everything. first love, first lover, first "oh shit... i would swallow fire for you" feeling in the pit of my stomach. people would ask me what it was i saw in someone who was such a loner, such a flighty, quiet, angry man. i would reply, "i just know."

i just knew.

i was wrong, of course, but that's what being young is all about. i would have, rather, i DID do anything i could to be with him. i bought a plane ticket to see him in california. i drove miles and miles from college to atlanta and orlando and ormond beach to breathe him in. i wrote letters and poetry and journal entries about how deep he ran and how i could never bear to lose him. i changed my hair color and took out my peircings (several times at that, ugh) and dressed differently all because he didn't want me to look as "alternative" as i did inherently.

we don't talk anymore. we don't talk, and my world went on and i survived because i realized i am always going to be the way i am. i can spend money on highlights and let the holes in my skin close up and wear gap khakis... but underneath everything is a broken girl who finds beauty in things like candles by winelight and how dusk makes leaves golden and how hurt and sadness are inspirations to me. i have always been this way, and i've come to find out, i really, really like it.

it took me ten years with this kid to understand that he was too chickenshit to tell me that it wasn't me he loved. maybe because he thought i was pretty, or his friends were telling him that i was a great catch and to never let me get away or he'd regret it. but deep down, he wasn't in love with who i was, and no amount of sacrifice on my end would ever change that.

it's a valiant thing to protect someone you love from heartache. to want to shield them from the things that burn bridges in our hearts. but it's more valiant to know when to let them go, because they deserve better than what you can offer them. the fourth would have kept me for the rest of his life had i stuck to all the changes. but inevitably, what happened was that i was so angry with him, all the time, towards the end of our hiccups of a relationship. i was angry with him, and i would get so heated at myself, and eventually end up destructing what i thought i wanted so badly, and it was because i just never seemed to be what he wanted.

i am a great girl, don't get me wrong. i'm smart and quickwitted and independent and artistic (and i could have done worse in the genetics dept, i'm not all that bad to look at i think)... alot of men would want a woman like me. but i'm not for everyone, and it hurt me so bad that i couldn't be what he wanted. i sacrificed and shed tears of loneliness because he just didn't understand me... but, it was never going to work. i could never change enough of what i was to light a spark in his heart, and i wasted years of my youth and ink in my pens trying to do it.

had he just told me back then, and let me fall to the floor, i would have picked myself back up and attended to my wounds. i deserved someone who would look at me the way i looked at him, and i think the worst part about him never loving me that way was him keeping quiet about it so that he could keep me, like my grandmothers ivory jewelry box on my dresser.

none of this is easy, and none of this was planned. it hurts on both ends, truly and deeply.

k.