Thought Picnic: Closing the chapter on dead love

Stuck in the heart of the past

Now that I think about it, I have really decided to move on as for almost a decade my mind and soul was stuck in grief and mourning, regret and longing, a helplessness at the inability to make any difference to the hand that fate had dealt me in terms of meaningful companionship.

Along the line, I confused attention for commitment, strained at every possible attachment as if it had some mileage for life and fun. I was either reading the wrong signals or a bad judge of intentions and character. It might well be said, none were going to be good enough in the end.

I made accommodations that liberally expanded my acceptance of things my somewhat life of moderation and conservative consumption would never condone of myself. I battled with my conscience where disdain had to be tempered with the consideration that other lives can never be like how I choose my vices and limit my excesses.

I was never going to seek a high that left me out of my senses, much as I could have been adventurous, I doubt I belong to the cohort of the ‘try anything once’ kind. I had my red lines, I never crossed them.

I constantly guarded my heart

What I had for Chris was deep, yet it was unhealthy, I invested more than I ever got return for in every way, yet in that person was the idea of fun and love, possible life and adventure, maybe deeper love, and affection, but there were many times I had to withdraw to keep my heart from harm. Death brought sadness and regret that lasted years, of what could have been if I dared, I feared and so lost.

Birthday and day of death, I visited the Facebook page which I only friended after the person who originally invited me to Facebook had passed on. I left thoughts and memories, holding onto a slither of anything that as in fact nothing. I was in the thrall of the love I lost, I was still loving someone who I could never reach anymore.

Writing a new chapter

Finding new and meaningful love has given me the opportunity to close a chapter, which was written for more a time of sadness than there were occasional blips of happiness. Everything in between then and now never held a candle to that loss.

This new person who on the first touch felt like Chris because that burden followed me wherever I went, gave me a perspective beyond Chris like I found a new life. This was not Chris, in the light, in the mind, in the heart, this person had me, held me, sustained me, supported me and left Chris in the dust, both proverbially and literally. This was a better bidder for me.

A new chapter had begun, and with it has come a daring devoid of any fears, a boldness to act and do without equivocation, a kind of fulfilment is finding a gem that brings more value to one than the quest for more treasure. The treasure of the heart is inestimable, I have through loss, pain, grief, and bitterness come out learning anew that this little heart of mine can find something that dreams and hopes in the passage of time had forgotten to aspire to.

When I pinch myself wondering if this is really happening to me, I realise at the same time that I am ready for this, ready to live, ready to love and ready to escape completely from the past that kept me from finding true love.