And then I felt an arm around my shoulders. For the first time in that relationship, we had actually touched...and not just bumping into each other touched, but really touched with meaning. Even as I was beginning to adjust to the new sensation, the voice beside me said, paralleling the development of the plot, "pretend I'm drunk." I wanted to say, "you don't need to pretend that," or something to convey the lack of necessity of that phrase. I wanted to know that the touch wasn't just a haphazard action, but rather something with meaning.
Even then, I guess I saw that something was missing between us. But I didn't let it affect me, and dove into the relationship with every inch of my soul bared, every truth exposed. Now as I sit here, ten and a half months later, I can't stop remembering those moments. The brief encounters in sheltered hallways, the stifled laughter on abandoned paths, the longing gazes and the fleeting kisses. Each moment stands out to me as I look and see the winter unfolding before me. I can't look at the snow at night without remembering our first kiss. And it's not even that I miss that relationship. I think it's the innocence of it all that I really miss.
Someone asked me several days ago why I kept talking about it, why I couldn't "move on" like I said I had. I've certainly moved on in that I no longer have any emotional attachment...or even mildly present tolerance...toward my ex. But at the same time, I can't move on. It took me a long time looking into my own eyes in the mirror (hopefully not as narcissistic as it may appear) to really figure out the truth: because this person had seen me naked.
And no, I do not mean physically naked. I mean emotionally. I had been trusting, I lay myself prostrate before this individual whom I had trusted with everything. After it was all over, I couldn't help but notice that whenever I heard complaints from that end, it was always about how I was less trusting and less open and less honest about myself. Really, it was the opposite of the truth. I had been completely honest about my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions. For all intents and purposes, in that relationship, I was completely naked. I lowered my defenses all the way, I let them fall at the gentle pressure that pushed the soft lips of another onto mine. I could have stopped myself from falling that far but I didn't. I let the truth come out. I trusted.
Then it was all shattered. My heart wasn't broken. After all, I was the one who ended the whole thing when it had been falling apart for months. But my trust was. That's why I still haven't been able to move on--because I was hurt more by this person than I ever have been by anybody else. Pain like that doesn't just disappear. I'm not deluded enough to think of this as belated heartbreak or longing. I'm seeing it for what it really is. I'm too afraid to open up now, to be really honest with anybody.
I want to be in a relationship again. I want to be able to trust someone so completely and openly. But I can't. Because that was ruined for me seven months ago when I learned that my secrets weren't kept. So here I am, cowering behind my walls, praying that someone will find me. I can't keep hiding here, and pieces of the truth have leaked out. But it hasn't been because I've been willing to trust again, it was because I needed to talk about some things and deal with what has been happening. I've accepted this now, but I have also become a changed individual because of it, more sedate and reclusive for the fear of being hurt again. I'm still willing to risk myself, to put everything on the line for somebody, but first I need to know that it would truly be worth it. That all of my pain wouldn't be for nothing like it was the last time I tried.
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