Coffin

NOTE:

I wrote this on August 1st, 2010, initially as a post to this blog.  I took it down perhaps 24 hours later.  It felt too raw at the time to leave up.  I have shared it with only a few of my friends since then.  I find it difficult to re-read because of how I remember feeling that morning.  However, the event I describe changed me in ways I'm still discovering.  I consider 8/1/2010 to be the day I re-acquired some of my lost emotional awareness.  This blog began in part from the ashes of my failed engagement and this post marks the definitive realization of that failure.  The blog just seems incomplete without this post.

I've turned off comments intentionally.  I don't want to relive any of these thoughts, I'd like to simply acknowledge them as memories.  As some of my friends have noticed, I've changed a lot and not necessarily for the worse.

---

I watched as the garage door jumped to life and slowly ascended. I had tried to mentally prepare for this moment, but all of my prior thoughts on the subject were erased as that door opened. First I saw tires, then a bumper, then a white tailgate with a logo I know well, and finally the door was completely open. I knew my she was home because her car was in the driveway, which is unusual because she normally parks in the garage. I figured his car was in there, and as the door opened, imagination turned into reality. I knew I needed to go through this moment, but I still gasped at how painful it was in real time.

I missed the goodbye kiss, fortunately, that is pain I did not have to endure. I watched her walk out the front door, get into the car, and then heard both vehicles start. She backed out, then he backed out, and then she noticed me, sitting in my car, where I had been for about 90 minutes. I had come to apologize for harsh words two days prior, words I should not have said, words I did not mean. Words that had come out in the heat of the moment, when a call from him had interrupted a discussion that was turning into an argument. I had lost my cool, wished ill will towards her, and it had ruined my Saturday thinking about it. I had spent the prior 24 hours being angry, angry at him, angry at me, angry at her, and I did not want to be angry anymore.

She saw me and rolled her window down as he drove off the other way. I had imagined that I would be angry, but as it happened there was no anger, just utter despair. She asked if I wanted to talk. Funny, that is exactly what I had texted to her about 90 minutes before, and also repeated in a voicemail. She is an early riser, and something had kept her in bed late today. I was mildly pleased with myself for having the restraint to avoid knocking on the door and forcing the issue while they would still have been naked together. I left them the opportunity for a pleasant morning, for the chance to enjoy that special joy of spending an intimate evening together, before I ruined the party.

She invited me in, and I walked into her place. As soon as I got through the door, a torrent of emotions fell out on the floor. I think I went through every possible humiliating act that a human can do. I cried, sobbed, wailed, punched the floor, curled up into a little ball, paced, cried some more, slapped myself upside the head, dry-heaved, and hyperventilated. I am not a drama queen, and I don't cry much at all, but there was no stopping this hailstorm.

I suppose I am strange for being sad at this moment, that I have no right to be so devastated since she broke up with me and moved out months ago. She says she felt lonely when we were together and felt rejected, but I guess now we both know what that means. I don't have any right to be sad that she is moving on, and finding emotional and physical joy in another's arms, but somehow it still completely crushes me to think of them together. She was the only woman I had ever proposed to, the only woman I ever thought I could spend the rest of my life with, to share intimate moments, to be naked and spoon with, to live our lives together, to have children with, to grow old together. I had modified my behavior over the past few years, becoming more aware of many of my faults such as tardiness, eye contact, greetings, formalities, general manners. I changed my diet somewhat, and my sleep schedule substantially. I rented out my house and tried to fix up a new house with her. Yes I am imperfect, and yes I had been overly emotionally invested in my job at the time, to the detriment of my life. Yes I accept responsibility for failing to be what she wanted me to be, for making countless mistakes, for being late all the time. Yes, I screwed it up, I lost the girl of my dreams, it was my fault. None of that realization erases the joys we shared together, days spent planting trees, scraping floors, picking out appliances, doing workouts, eating, etc. And we had some of our own wonderful moments at night together, moments I will remember even if she doesn't, moments that were special to me, where I felt loved and complete.

I still love her, and today proves that point. If I did not love her, I would not care that she has moved on and found companionship and sexual chemistry elsewhere. It is a little ironic how the accused rejector becomes the rejected without really understanding what is going on along the way. I am forever changed from knowing her, from pouring my heart and soul out to her, and for watching the person I had proposed to love for the rest of my life move along to her next partner.