I'm nursing old wounds tonight. It's one am and I can't sleep. My heart hurts so bad I can physically feel it. I want to throw up.
I want so badly to go back to being 14 and to be able to do over all my high school years with all the knowledge I have now. It seems unfair that I am sentenced to carry pain for the rest of my life for mistakes I made during those years.
It seems like the deepest one ever falls in love is their first love. Age 14 or 15. But inevitably we ruin the relationship or even the possibility of relationship with this person because we don't know what we are doing yet. We have no experience. No knowledge. We are selfish and scared. So we screw up.
This seems like it should be forgivable. Immaturity doesn't seem like it should be such a crime. But somehow I still carry the pain. Does everyone carry this pain? Do we have to carry it forever? For me it seems to be getting heavier.
It's funny too, because in reality I don't want to undo what I have. I love my husband so much. I used to be able to thank God for the broken road that lead me to him (thank you Rascal Flatts for those words). I don't want things to turn out different really. I just want to be free of the pain of loss. And the pain of knowing I've hurt people I love. And the weight of so many words left unsaid. It's one thing to wonder what might have been. It's a whole other thing for that wondering to hurt. Why does it hurt so much?
I wonder if I had had the guts to tell my childhood best guy friend that all of the sudden I saw him as more than a friend, what would have happened? Maybe I never would have ever noticed anyone else. Maybe it would have been him and only him for all my life and my heart would be whole instead of so many pieces in so many places. But maybe not. I probably would have screwed that up. I probably would have been to curious about my other options to be committed so young. Maybe? I'll never know. I'm just wishing that I would have never noticed the boy who haunts my thoughts and dreams. Maybe if I would have dated my childhood best guy friend I would have never noticed him. If I had never noticed him maybe then tonight I could sleep and I wouldn't be so broken.
I feel half alive without him in my life. But I would be utterly soul dead if I lost my husband. So I choose half alive. That's the best I get these days. I don't see a path before me that offers full life. I only see a life ahead of me that insures that I carry pain.
And then, part of me wonders if it's just my husband that I miss. In some ways I think I was always searching for him, before I met him. I didn't have any of these thoughts until after we had kids. Now that we have kids we never have enough time together. I don't have the time or energy to draw him out like I used to. I miss him. We still share a bed, but we are often worlds apart. Maybe the pain I feel is just missing him. And I think I must have made a mistake somewhere a long the way to hurt like this, so I start at the beginning. And when I go back, there are so so many mistakes. So many things that I did wrong.
Maybe I should just stop that looking backward. It doesn't do any good. I can't go back. Those imperfections must stay in the tapestry being woven that is my life. Maybe the question is, where do we go from here? Oh, but that seems so daunting. I easily know the right thing to do with an problem from 1995, but the problems I have now...I'm lost.
Maybe the pains of my past are mild compared to the agony I see set before me. What about just staying in the present? Ugh. It's pain, only pain, everywhere is heart ache.
I think you are right that "first loves" are so utterly different than any others that follow. With that first person we love completely without limit, boundary, even reason. We haven't been hurt yet. We haven't hurt anyone yet. We haven't seen how very vulnerable and hopeful the human heart can be yet.
ReplyDeleteSo that first love is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
I do still love that first guy. I always will.
I would NEVER switch him for my husband, but I do feel the nostalgia of those young golden days. That person that I used to be, so wholly without soil. So trusting. So certain.
That first person can never really be reclaimed because he is a different person now and so are you and so am I. That is why it is golden.
I also still feel the pain from that relationship.
He and I have talked a few times since then and have rehashed whatever needed rehashing, forgiving each other, reaffirming our affection for one another, and wishing one another happiness in our lives. I recommend that if at all possible! *smile*
Feeling lonely TODAY makes YESTERDAY look so much more substantial than what it truly is... Dream, fantasize even. It's OK.
Then I think you are talking about a third person, your best guy friend. Lara, I do hope you find a way to forgive yourself for the regrets. Life is MESSY. Things aren't always so clear in the moment as they seem to be now, as you look back at them.
Life is gigantic, really. We come into contact with many different people. It makes sense that not all of them stay in our lives. Use these past deeply personal losses to remind you to connect with people today...to make the most of the time you have with people who are beloved to you....live a life where you say your feelings right out loud...a life without the regrets of not having let someone special know that you care. VERY FEW teenagers are able to put their emotions out there the way that you are wishing that you had done... You are asking quite alot of a teenager...
And now, today, feeling so distant from your husband, no wonder you are living in the past.
Not Knowing is awful! Painful! Lonely.
There is really just one way to KNOW and to reconnect. And that is to talk about it, to ask about it, to let him know that you see the distance and you want the closeness back.
Do you have that kind of relationship where you can put these questions out there?
Is he responsive to you?
Karen, thank you. Thank you so much for this response.
DeleteHmmm...do I have that kind of a relationship with my husband in which I can talk that way? Sort of. Yes, he would listen to me. He would probably argue with me because he would think my thinking is incorrect. These kind of arguments, even though they are calm and peaceful (we don't yell or insult one another), usually end up increasing the distance between us. It becomes more apparent that he doesn't see things the way I see them. He doesn't experience what I experience. Which I realize to most married couples is normal. =) We are different people after all. But you have to understand that we entered into marriage assuming that we would become "one flesh". We believed we would essentially become one person. In fact the opposite has been true. So we are both learning how to navigate relationship with two very different people with very different ways of interacting with the world. When I look at that logically it makes sense. But living in it, is harder than it sounds. Neither of us know how to do this very well. I don't even have language to describe what I'm wishing to attain for our relationship.
That said, I think I will set up a time to talk to my old fling and apologize to him. It would probably be good for both of us. That said, I actually haven't thought of him at all for a few days! That's new and huge for me. Yay! I'm going to celebrate that today. Progress. Baby steps.
I still don't know what to do about my female friend, but it seems that even writing it all down is helpful in my own head.