I was thinking about yesterday, when I said that the archetype for my new girlfriend is me, and just how narcissistic that sounded, just not in my head…. because I wasn’t thinking of me when I said it. I was thinking of someone else that looks sort of like me, and yet, is not me…. and no, Scales, I am not talking about your precious colonel, although I am sure she’s a catch and a half. No, I was thinking about someone who was standing next to Dana in a photo and Sam mistook her for my wife, saying, “I just thought your wife would look more like you.” And that’s when I realized that the woman in the picture did look a little like me, but it was more than that in terms of becoming an archetype. It was the way she carried herself in the world, which is not like me at all.
They say that opposites only attract in the short term, but I’d give anything to find someone that strong and that vulnerable all in the same package. Maybe that’s why I’ve gone out of my way to look for people in the military, because what I have found is that I like their strength in the outside world and that vulnerable space that’s only for me.
Perhaps that’s also part of leaving Argo behind, because she’s tough as barbed wire, but in our rabbit hole there was a vulnerability and poignancy to her words that still run through my mind a lot. The house I built for her in my head is slowly coming down, but there are still a a lot of bricks. Today the memory was her saying I love you for some reason or another, because the reason doesn’t matter. The fact that she was vulnerable enough to say it does.
I have two minds on that. The first is that she never should be expected to stay my friend no matter how bad it gets. The second is that love letters are the campaign promises of the soul. Even friends with an explosive connection have a honeymoon phase, and this was no different. She said that no matter what I confided in her, there was nothing I could do that would make her love/like me any less, and I tested that boundary until it broke, because I’m not sure that I felt worthy of her from day one. I pushed her away before she could even think about doing it to me, because I didn’t think I was worth her time.
But I was, and she showed it to me every day, and I was an idiot for not watching and listening much closer than I actually did. I have no choice but to move away from this experience, because she says that she really does think it’s better that we don’t communicate, and I see her point wholeheartedly and support it. The less we interact, the less chance there is for something to come out of either of our mouths that can be misconstrued as wrong or bad or any number of things that will set one of us off like a ticking time bomb.
It’s why I’m trying to look forward so hard, because I need to move into a different place emotionally now that I’ve had enough time to physically move and get my bearings. I am nothing if not resilient when it comes to moving, because being a preacher’s kid, I never lived anywhere longer than five years before my father left the ministry when I was 17. The place I’m in is sometimes happy, but as Aaron says, “I don’t have to make room for grief. Grief makes its own room.”
And in the fullness of blessing and releasing, God of the Universe, protect my precious Argo………………….#prayingonthespaces
I may have to bless and release every day for a while, but what does it hurt to pray for someone and wish them well even when they don’t talk back? It helps me to forgive me, regardless of what energy comes back…. but I would like to believe that the more I put positive energy into the universe, the more I open myself up to receive it.
And one day I will open my eyes, having woken up to the next great love of my life, because I will be at peace.
Stories That Are All True 