He didn’t do anything for my birthday. And I’ve been saying that it’s okay… and it IS okay… it’s okay… really… it’s good and beautiful and natural and understandable and means that he is letting me go and that he’s moving on… and I want him to, because I am… I want him to let me go…

So why can’t I stop crying?

I thought he might have sent me flowers—two-dozen long stemmed red roses that were sitting outside my front door yesterday—but they were from Dad. And my heart sank into my feet. And I cleaned each stem, anyway, with the same TLC that I would have cared for his gift. Removing the thorns, throwing away the leaves, stirring the plant food into the water filled vase. The way I did each time he would bring me flowers in apology, or in celebration, or in just-becauses.

I thought he might have mailed me a letter, but my mailbox remains crushingly empty. I can feel the drought from in here, from inside my living room. I imagined he might have written that he loves me (still), that he wishes he could be there to help me blow out my candles, that he thinks I deserve all the magic in the world, that I mean everything to him. I imagined that he would say, “Everything will be okay, Peanut, because we have each other” like he used to every night before bed. I imagined that I would have believed him…

I had a yellow and black UPS slip on my front door-“signature required.” And I didn’t admit until tonight that I found comfort all day yesterday thinking it was from him. But it wasn’t…

No emails. No phone calls. No-thing.

I am bleeding sadness. It’s really over, isn’t it? (Why do I keep having to reminding myself this…………………………….?)

Last night I opened the bottle of wine that he and his family bought me for my graduation a year and a half ago—when things were different—when I still believed he was my til-death-do-us-part. Well wishes written in silver pen all over it. My hands shook violently… and I swear if I hadn’t had the collective strength of my five Twisted Sisters, I never could have uncorked. But I did and we drank it, consumed the last juicey evidence of my former life. New family digesting the old. Making new. Dissolving old.

….I just thought we’d drink it together, Pean… I thought we’d cheers to what we had done together. What dreams we had realized. My success, OUR lives. US. I thought we’d sit on OUR couch and clink OUR wineglasses, me with a wine charm, you without (because the noise annoys you). I thought you would hold me and touch my face…

But as I write that I realize that I don’t remember what it would feel like. I don’t remember what your weight feels like on my chest. I don’t remember how your mouth tastes or how your belly heaves when you laugh out loud. I don’t remember how long you held my gaze before you’d kiss me. I don’t even remember when the last time you told me that you love me… or what it meant when you said it.

I’m loosing the memory of you…

I remember how you put on your socks—how you would kick three times to air out your toes while sitting on the bed. I remember how you used to coax me awake by sitting beside me and rubbing my back. I remember that you can’t drink your Americano until it cools. And that my hands were literally consumed by yours. I remember how I loved your enthusiasm, your energy, your positivity. I used to listen to you talk about design, criticize, analyze, dream out-loud and I thought you were brilliant (even before you earned the accolades to prove it).

Didn’t that mean something to you, Pean? I loved you before you were the man you’ve become. I loved you insecure. I loved you tired. Scared. Immature. Undeveloped. Broke. Breaking. I loved you silly. Small-town-eee. Before “stuff” mattered so much. Before your resume was developed. When architecture was about inspiration, not success. When your image didn’t matter…

I loved you just because…

I asked James Dean the other night if he could explain something to me. I pointed to the photos on my wall. “See those up there?” He looked. “Half of them were taken when I was living in Boston. And even though I’m smiling, my eyes are empty. I remember being that woman and feeling dead inside because I was so miserable. And I know that I don’t want that life back… so why am I so sad to have lost it?”

“You know what I think?” He said after a time. “I think you are grieving the loss of hope of the future you thought you would create. You’re grieving the loss of hope, Jodi.” And he’s right… I don’t want it back, that empty excuse for a life. The M I am remembering, he died a long time ago. And the person who replaced him I want nothing to do with.

I just thought it would be different. Thought it could be different. Thought we’d be growing old together—the old M and me— building careers together, creating family and home together. I thought Boston would be nice to me. Take me in and encourage my evolution. But none of this happened. Nor is it going to. But the loyalist in me doesn’t want to let go of the vision. The hope that eventually it’ll be realized.

I think I am starting to dream about another life—with someone else’s face where his used to be. With new traditions, with new “family,” with happy times, and loving gestures, and surprises, and growth, and til-death-do-us-part. A new story of hope. Shall replace, will replace, is replacing ours.

Or maybe it’s just growing side by side?

Now that M’s let me go I know I need to do the same. But not in the practical, change-of-address, close bank accounts, way. Did that. I need to let go of the hope of a future “us”. I need to stop believing that WE will continue, that there will be an insertion of his presence, of our former love, in chapter 23 or in the epilogue or in the sequel of my life story. Because I know it won’t happen.

……….. But wait! Stop. Stop it. Oh god. My heart. It aches. Oh goddddd. I donno if I can do it. I don’t think I’m strong enough yet. Or believe it. Or want it??

How do you stamp out the existence, the commitment to a lifelong vision of someone by your side? How do you fully erase their face and paint someone else’s on top? Or do you not EDIT the story? Do you let the old one age, uncreated, like a make-believe book growing dust on the shelf? Do you simply start to author another future? Or do you stop dreaming altogether?

And wait for your new story to unfold…