we’ll float

take life as it comes.

this morning as i sit on my couch in my living room alone listening to pj harvey, memories wash over me. the why’s of falling in love with dj. and there are many. which makes this break even more painful, even more acute.

i cried. i fell in love with you. how could you break my heart like this? how can you hurt me like you do?

i remember meeting you. i remember the first kiss. i remember the rush of emotion every single time before we were going to see each other. i remember the carefulness we both felt – the fragility of love and life. i remember thinking that you and i were it – we were the text book case of what love is. what it should always be. i remember that for months i was never walking – always floating just slightly above the ground.

and then i remember our first fight. and i remember thinking – oh shit. there is something very messed up here. this isn’t right. it’s one thing to have a conflict but this was catching a sliver of the ugly past you hold inside. and i was pretty sure we hadn’t seen the last of it.

i fell in love with you. i loved your passion for climbing. i loved how you became a little boy in the woods. how much fun we have together when we  hike or camp or just play in nature. we bonded so well and shared such a deep connection in nature. it hardly needed words. it just was this wonderful thing that we both felt – seeing the joy in the other person and feeling it too.

i have other memories of these moments – where you opened up to me. at the top of mt. rainier, some random moment when we were waking up together, that unconscious sexy move you made the other day.

and yet – you are an unsafe place for me. i no longer trust you. you hurt me. and although i don’t think that you mean to do it – it hurts nonetheless. i have tried to talk to you about this. i have tried to grit my teeth and bare it. i have tried to be careful and not need you, not push your buttons, to talk carefully and sensitively. i have bent over backwards trying to figure out how to be whole in our marriage without triggering you. i have walked on eggshells. i have fought for myself, tried to live by example, tried to communicate in every way i could think of to tell you that when you shut me out, when you become hostile to me, when you are sarcastic and mean that it pushes me further and further away. i have tried to tell you that our marriage is precariously close to ending.

and i am sooo far from perfect. i have failed so many times to keep my patience. i have failed so many times not to succumb to vengeance. i have lashed out in anger at you. yelled at you. shoved you. these things that make me feel so much shame. i cannot hold on while you reject me. i cannot hold on while you shut the door in my face or say mean things. i don’t want to be that person anymore. i don’t know how to keep myself open to you and bonded but capable of handling being vulnerable to your rejection of me.

i have seen you make many attempts to make things better. things aren’t near as bad as they were when we first started fighting. i know that you want to support me. i know that you love me. but these attempts are unfortunately either too small or too far apart to help offset the times when things get ugly.

we had love. we had this amazing thing together. but our story teaches that it takes more than love to make it work.