Everything that I own is not mine
There is the sense that everything here, everything around me, that I own, is not mine. I have no connection with these things any more. It is as if these are the relics of another life.
In some respects they are. It is because, as the song says, everything I have is yours. These things all once belonged to her. To her and I. Ours.
Of course, reading letters is difficult. Whoever they are from they were written to me. But also, not me. To a previous me. With emotions that are long spent. Loves long burned hollow.
And the other difficulty is realising the passion with which I lived. When everything, every fibre, every dollar, every breath was for her. Notes, gifts, I have them still even though I have largely forgotten when I loved her so completely.
It is not just that the love is lost. It isn’t just that we no longer love each other the same way but that I’m not that person anymore. I don’t greet each day with the same determination or passion, filled I expect with the knowledge that I am loved and am in love.
The market basket that now holds my laundry was once a Christmas gift for her, full of food and wine. And without her now these things have lost all meaning. The glasses, the coaster, the lamp. When did I let this all go?
I’m not sure that I can live just for myself. Not that I can’t go on, just that each day is half-lived. And I don’t know when it all fell apart. I imagine that if I can determine the break then I can remedy or avoid but really, now, all I can remember is the joy lost.
So I dream of running. Hitting the road, flying somewhere far away.
With movement I can distract myself from the loss. Though at some point I have to stop and face whatever has happened.
The problem, when a relationship like this dying, is that it isn’t just the end of two people; it is the end of the two people that they would become, the dreams and plans that they shared, that they began to prepare themselves to become. And the break destroys that, destroys those futures utterly. Even reconciliation meets with different dreams. More fragile, less fanciful. Not hopes of living in Tuscany or by some beach, but dreams of just making it work.
So now, I’m living in the vacuum of those broken dreams. And I made plans. I had tried so hard to map out what I would do after the split. I knew how I was to regain my footing. But that isn’t the same thing. And I’m living a half life in the emptiness of dead dreams.
And now I wonder whether running is enough, or whether running is necessary. Perhaps silence. Remaining hidden and mute.