A year. In the summer you had left our vacation and we both lived the separation without really seeking clarification again. Occasionally I perceived the superficial contact via messages, I put letters from you unopened to the side and your things were in my apartment. You didn’t ask for it, I didn’t grab it.
Late in the autumn, the feelings shook me for the first time. Suddenly it was present that you had left. Deep inside I felt the break and tried to find a kind of closure for self-protection, but above all distance to you and your desire for friendship.
Contact blocking was an attempt
Packing and returning your things, banishing all photos and asking for a contact block were part of my pathetic attempts to somehow make the incredibly intense feelings disappear. The attempt to somehow understand and accept the breaking free of this emotional roller of guilt, self-doubt and feelings of inferiority, loneliness, shame, insecurity and powerlessness failed. In return, this inner turmoil settled down, intensified my well-known restlessness and from then on determined sleep and more and more areas of life.
In winter, you suddenly stood in front of my garden door and after the following walk in the cold and snow, you quickly got into the car and drove away. I was glad because you didn’t see my tears like that. Nor my confusion about me, because I tolerated your appearance almost mechanically, in a settled manner, and spent time with you. Only in the course of the walk did I feel how I was looking for distance, keeping rising pain at bay and trying to cope with the rest of the way and adequately following the stories of your new life.
It hurt to experience this vague feeling that you had moved on, as a reality, and to stay behind. We didn’t have any contact after that, but the turmoil in me remained and a wave of questions about his and life prospects started, which offered more than enough material for sleepless nights, despair and tears.
Your letter in my garden
In the spring in the morning I found a letter from you in my garden, which I almost could not open. I was only able to answer this many hours later, which I only saw as being based on my emotional chaos for a long time, but in time I could also determine the expressiveness of your lines.
You came over late the same evening, we kissed. I enjoyed your immediate proximity, but I felt resistance to the emerging passion between us and sought the conversation. In doing so, I caught myself “overlooking” changes in you, references to new life contents and avoiding crucial topics.
Sometime that night you went quiet after I asked you to. Confronted with my perception and the idea of your lack of sincerity towards me, you confirmed my feeling. You had started your new life and avoided crucial topics in the letter and in the conversation itself.
Starting a new life
It’s summer again and many things and hours of every day still wear a gray veil and cost infinite strength. The turmoil inside me continues. Again and again I feel deep sadness and guilt that I was not able to better cope with the influence of my history and illness on my being and our relationship. Great uncertainty accompanies the knowledge that our time together seems to have failed you in pursuing, perhaps also perceiving, your innermost aspirations. Did we really know each other?
So much is in question. And yet I now know one thing: the pain as well as the persistent feeling of loss and deep loneliness in me are based on more than our time. They are based on bridges to the past and the longing for something that I could discover through you and feel for a little while. Security and connection. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for moments of this deep calm.