I always make the same mistakes, 'cos I'm bad at love

(Note from the Editrix: Because these are mounting, sadly, I'm going to start generally indicating when they were written, as opposed to published. This one is from very late on the 25th of July, with the pictures being taken earlier in the day.)



whoa, whoa, what if this is all the love you ever get?
whoa, whoa, you'd do a couple things so differently, I'll bet
whoa, whoa, what if this is all the love I ever know?
whoa, whoa, I'd say the words that were so hard to say: 'don't go'

No one went anywhere, that's always been part of the dilemma. "How can I miss you if you won't go away?" the saying goes, and its reverse is true in this case--how can I heal from him if he's still there?

Leaving aside the question of, wasn't our choice in the first place.



so you've fallen in love
so you've fallen apart

Yeah, well...wasn't looking for it, wasn't planning on it, wasn't asking for it. I had what I wanted, or...at least, that's what I thought. I know I've said this before, but things really were starting to line up. For the first time in far too many years, nothing was actively on fire, or leaking mutagenic vapors, or exploding. Nothing had wrapped me up in barbed wire.



what if it hurts like hell?
then it'll hurt like hell
come on over,
come on over here

I'm not saying nothing hurt. I'm not saying there were no jagged, uneven breaks in the pavement. I'm not saying things were perfect by a long shot, because they never have been, they weren't then, and they won't be in future. Just flat out. I am not destined for a pacific existence, that is not my place in the fabric of the universe. I'm the pin that snags as often as I'm the needle that mends, but both are sharp.



I'm in the ruins too
I know the wreckage so well
come on over,
come on over here

And I tell people I'm broken and they say I'm perfect; I tell people I'm damaged and they say, isn't everyone? And I know what they're trying to do--tell me that they understand, tell me that my self-perception is flawed, tell me I'm a better person, stabler person, more emotionally rich person, than I let myself see.

Okay. Everyone has a blind spot; mine's about three feet in diameter and striped like a target. I get it. I see my flaws clearly and my virtues dimly, if at all.



whoa, whoa, what if this is all the love you ever get?
whoa, whoa, you'd not worry so much about counting your regrets
whoa, whoa, what if this is all the love I'm ever shown
whoa, whoa, I'd not be so scared to run into the unknown

But this, iterations of this, some even worse than what I'm dealing with at present, keep cropping up. I have a scarred and scarring history, and while I did survive it, I did not survive it whole. And all the claims of perfection and wonderful and 'it's not so bad' will not change that.

Though the one who recently named me an opiate, that may come closer. And the lady in Caledon who told me that she'd been correcting people saying I'm poison, and telling them, no, no, she's not poison, she's been poisoned...and therein lies the difference, I suppose.



so you've fallen in love
so you've fallen apart

No. Fallen in love, yeah, probably--while we won't say it, because the word is uncomfortably charged with everything...it has been acknowledged. But driven apart is closer. And the circling question I've been trying to answer all these nights is still there--can I be friends alone after being lovers, and closer?

And it's taken me all this time to finally see why that was the first question, and not others. There's another situation, for instance. We were deeply in love, I believe truly. Issues rose, his and mine, and drove the first wedges in. And perhaps if we'd caught it then, and genially walked away from each other, none of the rest would have happened, but...neither of us are good at letting go.



what if it hurts like hell?
then it'll hurt like hell
come on over,
come on over here

I think at this point both of us from that former situation know we will never be a couple again, in that singular sense. But he still loves me. I think I may always love him. Enough damage happened, over time, though, to make the walking away not only necessary to my health, but in a sense necessary for his as well. And on the other side of it, years past it...we're still friends, though it remains awkward. We still talk, nearly daily. We still can't completely detach. And we both still have moments where we think back, and wonder.



I'm in the ruins too
I know the wreckage so well
come on over,
come on over here

But we went through hell to get there, hell we both created, a conflagration we both fed until the flames ate the world. He descended into darkness, I descended into hallucinations, because we are the people we are. Neither of us are six shots at the bar and some barely remembered lovely in some random back room people.

what if this is all the love you ever get?

The point I am so inelegantly trying to make is this: we have what we have on the other side, not because we stayed in love, but because we had to rebuild any sort of relationship after. And it was a slow process. Stone by stone, brick by brick, until we had something other than broken bones and shattered breathing. Or, at least, that was my side; his may be completely different.

We are where we are now because damage drove us apart. We lost that sense of love and yearning we had because it did not survive the shattering. But if the only damage between myself, and the present other, is tied up in the mistakes made, and not grinding, unendurable, arguments and screaming, acid tears and thrown daggers...then there's not the same level of damage.

So I'm not getting to the place where I can start to let go. Right now, it's not...bad enough, if that makes any sense. And that's key--my past pattern has always been try to fix any broken love, try to keep it going, try to swallow the glass shards threatening to slice me open from inside, if it will keep me in that place, until...there's too much damage to ignore, too much pain to function, too much glass in my system.

And then they leave, or I do.

So for the question that keeps circling, the answer I'm only beginning to perceive now is...things have to get worse, or they have to restore. But I will not heal where I am. I have to get to the place I can abandon, or step back from the decision.

Which...doesn't help, overall. One I don't want and one I can't have, so...it's life on a tightrope until another path reveals itself. Until then...I breathe, I process, I try to find more answers. I work on letting go, and I try not to flinch, overthink, or cling too tightly. I try to get better about walking the wire.

I've never been good at walking the wire.

(Pictures taken at the Rainforest Reserve, the Forest of Astray, and the Seance. Lyrics from Snow Patrol's What If This Is All the Love You Ever Get?)