The Date After Next (401 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Mercutio (View user info) at 2004-11-05 16:20:20 EST
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There is, all at once, a fleeting moment of rationality that will hit you like a brick wall and then subside, leaving you shaken and doubting everything that you have ever lived for. It will well up and wash over you momentarily and then leave you, shaking and transformed.
***
It was almost one year ago that I left for California with hopes of discovering myself and what it would take to finally find peace. The west coast is best in the fall--the days are clear and warm, the nights are soft and quiet. A few weeks beforehand my girlfriend and I had broken up after a deeply emotional 4-year relationship. The coast seemed like the most obvious answer to my grief--I couldn't tell you why...it had always brought me peace before.
You don't realize how long the body can survive without sustinence. Most days I lived on a cup of coffee and the occassional bagel. You're tired and you're shaky most of the time. Words flow off of the page when you try to read and sounds are quieter and less important. But somehow starving yourself helps you to forget about what else is happening. Your body stops dedicating its energies to emotion and works on keeping you awake...alive.
***
It had been awhile since I had seen the ocean. 3 years. Or 4. I still wasn't eating much but the sound helps you to remember things in the haze of a half-starved memory. Even though it had been over a month since I had cut it off with her--my Lady Godiva--I still sought some sort of solace; my body craved it and at the same time dreaded the moment when I would finally let go and begin the long process of forgetting about her. I imagined the pain to be something that would stick with me, but I hoped the waves would erode it away and make it a little less noticeable.
I spent the trip sitting in the foam of the ocean and losing myself in my mind. I thought, but I also tried to concentrate just on living...experiencing. To live phenomenologically requires a lot more skill than I had, though and at times I wished the tide would carry me out and give me a permanent way to forget. But I knew I wasn't going to shake my feelings here. A few more days remembering the sound of the crashing sea water and shifting sand and I left, discouraged and restless.
***
The plan was simple. Over the course of my trip, I had been conversing with a friend about moving into his since deceased grandfather's house. We would be roommates and his father would cut us a deal on the rent. Upon my return I would prepare to move out of the apartment a month later. She wanted me to stay, begging me through sobs and coughs on the phone, but I had made up my mind. It would be easy.
After returning, we exchanged the small talk you would naturally expect. She was good at holding back the tears at first, but I could usually hear her muffled sobs through the thin walls of our apartment at night. We went on for a week--living together, speaking occassionally, and preparing for Christmas--with few complications. I was better than her at concealing my grief, but my consolation meant little to her. My resolve to part quickly and quietly didn't numb her, though.
Things begin to make more sense when you wrap your arms around your past lover's petite frame and it doesn't help like it used to; the tears won't stop and no amount of strength will help that. The trauma of the entire ordeal had left me focused on ignoring my feelings, but nothing summoned tears up more than she did as she buried her face in my shoulder.
***
I remember the day distinctly. We were both getting ready that morning, a cold December weekday with lots of clouds. I had agreed to stay a little while longer...help her to gain some financial footing and figure out where she wanted to go. Unlike most days, she was warmer than me, which I noticed shortly after she snuck behind me. After several weeks of virtually no contact, she wrapped her arms around me as I stood in front of the mirror. After resisting so many times before, I breathed.
If you have never had a grieving woman beg you to make love to her one last time, then you cannot know how it feels to surrender to her wishes after swearing to yourself that you wouldn't. When you feel her mouth against yours and her body feeling desire for you, tears well up and pour down your face. It was, without a doubt, the most intensely emotional bond I have ever felt with any person in my life.
You would think that a neglected love would be less--less passionate, less ardent, less desperate. It isn't. The force of her words and the movement of her body spoke to me louder than the ocean could ever hope to. She washed over me and at that moment, I knew where my peace was. I knew where I belonged. And I knew what I had to do.
***
Sometimes you find the answers in the most unexpected of places. When you're hurting, you find yourself always wishing for tomorrow in hopes of realizing that your pain is subsiding, constantly wishing for the date after next to hand you the cure. When your soul dances with another, you've found what you're looking for and the only thing you seek is a way to make every moment more permanent...some way to hold on to the fleeting memories.
I found my answer in the arms of a mermaid. She hasn't let me go since.
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Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2005-01-16 11:35:40 EST (#)
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