boomerang

I had a thought today that is so crazy it just might be true. I had written an old old friend and shared, in my apparently unstoppable way, what my adventure in Jamaica has been like thus far, but also the grey cloud that has loomed over it. 

I wrote one particular sentence that is absolutely true, yet not the truth. I said that '[He] gave me something I'd never experienced in a relationship before - I was young, and feminine, and fun, and lovely with him.' It hurt to write it, in that poking at a bruise to see how it's healing sort of way. It hurt to have it flash through my mind throughout the afternoon. It reverberated there like a rattle in the dashboard that needs fixing, and so I examined it a bit more. And suddenly, on my walk home, I realised what the untruth in that truth was. 

I remember her.

It is true that I was my best self - at least intermittently and retrospectively - in that relationship. But the deeper truth is that nobody bestowed beauty, or laughter, or gentleness on me. I decided myself that that was who I was - in his eyes, and in my own. 

I miss him. Absolutely. But I miss feeling like that woman even more. The fear that keeps my heart in my throat is that that woman is never coming back. I suspect that perhaps she can, now that I know where she came from.