I told someone recently that I didn’t want to fall in love or have a committed relationship because I had already done that. She told me it was a lifetime ago and that it was time to try again. It is in this moment I felt most misunderstood.
I don’t want to fall in love again because I know that no other love could ever compare to our epic failure of a love story.
I don’t want to fall in love again because nobody could make me feel as much as you did, and that’s only partially due to the walls you secured into place when you left me behind.
I don’t want to fall in love again because nobody can ever give me the dysfunctional destruction that we called true love.
I don’t want to fall in love again because if I do then six years after we ended, it will finally be so true that I can’t deny or ignore it anymore.
I don’t want to fall in love again because there’s no person in this world I will allow the power I so easily and willingly offered to you.
I don’t want to fall in love again because if I do, then that will mean that I have finally fallen out of love with you, and I’m just not sure that my heart would have any other reason to beat.
Thinking of you is like that point in a hangover when you feel dizzy and cold and your body shakes so hard you swear you’re going to die. Crying over you is the moment of release and relief when you finally throw up all of last night’s booze. Promising to never love you again is the equivalent of promising to never having another sip of alcohol for as long as you live. It’s a lie, all of it.
And for as long as you are in my past, I will never be okay.
When the pain of illness takes over, it feels as though the only word I can even remember is “mom.”
I cry it, I scream it, I whimper it.
“Mom. MOM! Mom.”
And yet, when my demons are beating me bloody and leaving me in a pool of my own tears and regrets, it’s the hardest word to say.
I imagine you walking into the room, seeing me curled in on myself, and all you have to do to ease my troubles is hold me. Your knowing fingers in my hair, your gentle kiss on my forehead, and your whispered promise of “tsavet tanem” is all the strength I need to defeat them. To defeat all of them.
It’s a shame I’ll never find the courage to ask for your help when I need it most.
mom
