Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Heart. Broken.

Only YOU can fix it.
I came across this little piece I wrote over a year ago after the breakdown of my relationship. I wanted to post it as an ode to how therapeutic writing can be and that like all things, time heals all wounds...
There really is nothing that one can say to you when someone tells you that they don’t love you anymore. Nothing.
You sit there shifting from tears and blubbering mess to questioning yourself with what “you” did wrong. All the while being told “it’s not you, it’s me”, by the person that you love. The very person that you have trusted with the most vulnerable of things, your heart. You tell those that you love and trust and they constantly remind you of a relationship they had that ended in a “similar” way, letting you know that “it does get better”. Meh. What gets better is what I would like to know? The hurt? The broken heart or the fact that your trust has been broken in the most awful of ways. I would like to know the answer. Please.
I guess that there is no answer. If there was, no one would be upset, deceitful, lie or ever hurt again. What a world that would be, honesty and love with no hurt. I wish I lived in that place right now. I have only experienced pain like this once before in my life and that was the morning I found my previous partner dead, hung over the toilet. I think in the last 24 hours I have cried so much that I have burst little blood vessels all around my eyes. Great, as if I am not already feeling über confident at the moment with everything else, I now look like I have contracted some jungle virus!
I feel sick, really sick. I have a headache and my eyes are stinging, the kind of stinging that you get from swimming in salt water without goggles. I know that the physical aspects will all subside in time, they always do. Humans are good like that. It’s the heart that is broken. The heart, the memories and the love that I don’t think I will ever be able to get over. I did it once, it took a while but I had no choice but to “get over it”, he died. This is a bit different. I am not loved “like that” anymore. I don’t have a choice this time.
My friends, what do I tell them? My family, his family, his friends, what the hell do I say? We all make mistakes, we all do things that we regret, or maybe we don’t regret. Who knows? I think it’s easier for the other person, they have already decided on what they will do, whether it is in their mind or by their actions, or in some cases, both. What the hell do I say?
I am lost, more lost than I have ever been in my life and scared, boy am I scared. I am trying to work out what is scaring me so much and I just can’t find the answer. Maybe I have been to dependant, I never used to be. Maybe it is the fear of being out there, alone, facing things without my best friend by my side, my best friend who has picked me up when I have fallen, picked me up so many times over the last nine and a half years that I just don’t know what I will do without him. Oh shit, here come those fucking tears again! Damn they sting. I know I don’t have a say in this, that is one of the hardest things for me, I just don’t have a say this time.
It’s good to write or talk things out, isn’t it? He is such a good person and I have been so lucky to have had him in my life. The luckiest person in this world actually. It’s kind of selfish of me to think that only I should experience this, maybe that old adage really is true:
If you love something, Set it free… If it comes back, it’s yours, If it doesn’t, it was never truly yours to begin with….

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

I wonder...




I wonder,

Will you find me when I am lost?

I wonder,

Will you still love me when I am old and time has weathered my face and body?

I wonder,

Will you stand by me when I am at my lowest point, and applaud me when I am at my highest?

I wonder,

Will you always walk by my side and never in my shadow?

I wonder,

Will you educate me when I am complacent and ignorant?

I wonder,

Will you laugh at me when I am silly, and always with me when we are happy?

I wonder,

Will you kiss me as I take my last breath, the way you did when we had our first?

I wonder,

Will you let me hold you when you need it the most?

I wonder,

Will you let me love you, when even you think you don't need it?

I wonder,

Will you let me read this to you when we are old, to remember a life shared?

I wonder,

If you feel the same...


Saturday, October 12, 2013

A house is not always your home...



Something strange just happened to me. Something that I have not felt in over a decade.

I walked through the front of "my" house and stopped. I heard the door slam behind me. I felt almost frozen like, as if time had just halted. I looked around the room in front of me, a surge of memories came flooding back, pounding my brain with all their intensity. I gulped for air as the feeling was causing me some sort of anxiety. I closed my eyes, I knew this would all be over if I just closed my eyes and calmed down. "Relax Matthew" I keep saying out loud, like some sort of Buddhist mantra.

My breaths slowed down, I gently opened my eyes. The room was exactly the same as when I had closed them, but I was not. I had realised something through that brief moment of craziness. This was no longer my home. Sure, most of the things, the ornaments and nick knacks belong to me, but the place, the memories, they were no longer mine.

I sat down. It has been just over a year since we broke up, how the time flies. I knew we would not get back together, the damage was done. But for some strange reason a part of me, a rather big part of me thought that things would always be the same. You know, we would always have each other to fall back on, grow old together, like friends, friends that used to be so in love. But it can't. Something has changed and drastically. I am different now, this does not feel like me, my home, my castle. I feel like I am a guest, a guest that maybe over staying his visit somewhat. I need to move on.

Our house, the one that we used to share is now just a distant memory. The journey to find my new home and create new memories begins now...

Me.

Just, me.

Many have told me that I need to be...

Cooler.
Hotter.
Younger.
Older.
Tougher.
Softer.
Passionate.
Sexier.
Slimmer.
Musclier.
Smarter.
Funnier.
Quieter.
Focused.
Relaxed.
Happier.
Sadder.

Luckily for them, I know just what I need to be...

Me.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Alone.

Sunrise over Shellharbour, 2009.

It's late, I can't sleep so what do I do? Look at photos of memories, both near and far. Not the best thing to do when some of those memories caused pain, or maybe it is. Sometimes it is those painful memories that remind us of what we have to be grateful for and not to ever make those same mistakes again.

I start with the pictures of a country I flew to on a last minute whim earlier this year. A trip that saw me being led by my heart over my head, something everyone told me to be mindful of. I wasn't mindful, nor did I really listen, rather I fell in head first to a romantic notion of some kind of tropical love affair. It was heavenly.

Don't get me wrong, I would do it all again in a heart beat, but I would go in slightly more guarded of my most valuable and vulnerable asset, my heart. I would never blame anyone or anything for this crazy notion of love other than myself, but people are not always what they seem. Or again, maybe they are but we just get so blinded by everything that we fail to see what is really standing in front of us. In my case, I failed miserably.

Many months later and I have made a number of new acquaintances from this very country, some amazing and some, well lets just say we no longer speak. I also find myself yet again discussing love, music and life with these people that I have never met, a concept that seems strange when we live on opposite sides of the world. I guess that is the power of technology and social media, the ability to connect.

One such person melts any icey barriers that I have managed to erect around my heart, in the hope that it will never be hurt again. He writes with passion and compassion, love and laughter, and the depth of his words and sentences jump at me from my screen to engulf me, leaving me yearning for the next paragraph. I am hooked. The adrenalin that rushes through my veins when I see him online is unlike anything I have felt for a long time.

But I stop myself. How many times can your heart take the pain of it potentially being broken again? Once? twice? or maybe it just never truly heals. I remember what I had written down on a piece of paper after my first partner passed away, "without the suffering and pain, I would never be able to understand the true meaning or feeling of what love is". Rather masochistic I know, but also very truthful.

The crossroads have arrived. I am staring them down head on and ready to charge. Which path do I take? Will it be the right one? What happens if I fuck up? Again? As I verbalise this out loud, a gentle answer sweeps through my head. "Follow your heart". Why? It has caused me nothing but pain in the past, but then I remember what I had written down all those years ago. Maybe now is my time, maybe I have culled all the suffering and pain away, maybe I am ready to receive and understand just what love is all about. Maybe the love is not about me and another, maybe it is about just me, learning to love me first. Finding out what makes me happy, what will bring about my smile again, a smile like my emerald eyed friend with whom when ever I see it, I lose myself in its beauty.

What I do know though, is at this time I am alone and I am cool with that. It has been a long time, but I am slowly making my way back to me...