Journey To The Past

Talk about a case of "the song remembers when" and "I go back". Heard a song from a tape that my ex from the early 90's made for me. Man, he was my life, or so I thought. I was so wrapped up in him, even though it was a long distance relationship. I never realized how one person could so shape my identity and my self-esteem. But now, older, wiser, more cynical of life, I realize that the best of what I was shone brilliantly when I was with him, and yet, it started to dim and the sparkle faded as I lost myself in him. Lost my identity, lost sight of who I was without him. That one stinking relationship colored every relationship after, even my marriage now.

Ahhhh, to be young and desperately head over heels in love with someone who loved you back but just "not enough" to justify being faithful to you. The brilliant blade of betrayal, slid so sharply and cruelly into the heart, soul and psyche of an idealistic, optomistic 20 year old. It took me over 3 1/2 years to get over that bastard (pardon the French) and I wonder now if I ever really did? I still carry the baggage on my worst days.

When you travel several hundred miles for a 6 week stay to see the person you love and planned on spending the rest of your life with and they go on a date while you are there living in their house for those 6 weeks and they tell you about it the night before; and to find out from four different people that he had been going out on dates while I was here in Texas and he was up in Kansas... Youthful idealism gets flushed down the crapper. Trust gets twisted into something pathetic and sickeningly needy. Like Sally Fields in Steel Magnolias screaming "WHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY?" after the funeral of her daughter and wanting to know why it happened and not finding any answers, my belief that there could be a happily every after stood there in the empty hollow of of my heart that had been ripped apart and suddenly it let out this deafening banshee wail that my soul has never really recovered from. Nice little realization there 11 years later.

No wonder all my relationships after that one were dead ends. I never believed I'd find anything like that first true love to fill the permanent cracks in my heart. So, I went looking for poor substitutes yet still managed to find a pretty good guy. Hope springs eternal but is beaten back by the cruel wings of reality and after a while it retreats, cringing, crouching at the mouth of a chasm wondering whether it's best to just take that plunge to its enevitable death or to press back, looking for that last vestige of sun and blue sky coming to show it the way back to the land of the living. How sad and pathetic a creature am I to have loved someone so deeply that even after all this time it still echos through my reality causing havok with those whom I love now?

I should have gotten counseling a long time ago about this. Instead I went to counseling to try and figure out what was wrong with my marriage instead of trying to figure out what was wrong with me, what is wrong with me still. In my imperfections, my trials, my hardships, I have found it surprisingly easy to counsel others in their grief, their pain, their hurts. I'm a member of an online site made up of the walking wounded, for lack of a better phrase. Christians who have gone through the deepest valleys and come out on the other side, battle worn and weary, but wiser for it. Though I personally still feel myself in the valleys on almost a daily basis, trying to deal with the depression I find myself under, I have unintentionally, unwantingly been thrust into a leader position within this group and begrudginly admitting it, I'm good. I don't want it, but I'm not going to turn it down either and abandon it. I stepped up to the plate and took responsibility for a rather large group of people in certain regards and find it not as distasteful as I thought.

Maybe I can start to heal now. As I listen to the song, I close my eyes and can still see him, his smile, those adorable dimples, his heart in his eyes when he looks at me, telling me that when he sees me he feels like he is coming home. Those crazy, lazy days of youth. The natural, wild-crazy-tender ebb and flow of true love. Somehow it no longer hurts as much. Maybe as I start to heal, my marriage will heal too. I can start to take those first steps of admitting where I went wrong, regardless of what he (my husband) did wrong. Hope springs eternal, albeit slowly, even though it took an extended hiatus.

Oh, the song that brought it all back to me like a slap across the face and has forced me to deal with this baggage I've been carrying around for the past 11 years?

"You Were There"
by Tonio K.

well it might have been a vision
or it might have been a dream
like a photograph of eden
it was like no place i'd ever seen

and you were there waiting for me
you shined the light when i couldn't see
i stood at the gate like a stranger
and you were there waiting for me

in the middle of the city
in the middle of the night
i woke up in total darkness
i'd been dreaming about the light

and i dreamed that we were laughing
and i dreamed that we were free
and i dreamed we were becoming
who we were meant to be

and you were there waiting for me
you shined the light until i could see
i stood at the gate like a stranger
and you were there waiting for me

Some songs are defining moments, some songs are stronger than the memories. Everytime I hear this song, which I heard for the first time tonight in about 10 years, I will always remember the golden boy of my youth. My first true love, my first true heartbreak. So long. Go with God. Be blessed. Have a wonderful life with the family you have now. I'll never be able to forget you, I just won't remember you so much anymore.