Where Fire Has Been

October 12, 2012

 

Where fire has been there is now only smoke. It curls off the end of my cigarette as I stare into the night, wondering what is real.

Everything is quiet, but I am filled with a sense of tension, as if the world is about to come crashing down around me.

 

 

 

The smoke obscures the truth, creating an illusion of peace with its beauty. In reality, the smoke is thick and hot and it burns my throat with each inhale. It casts a misty shroud over my soul.

 

Nothing seems real. It feels as if I have been transported to a parallel world where everything is duller, quieter, heavier. I move as if in a void. No matter which way I turn, everything looks identical, gray.

 

 

 

Where fire has been there are now burning embers. As the smoke lifts, I begin to feel the heat still burning angrily underneath the wreckage of my heart.

This burning is painful and unceasing. This is not the burning of passion and glory, but rather one of hurt and hate. Its purpose is to destroy, not to illuminate.

 

 

 

The pathetic remnants of hope stretch upward, like the charred stumps of trees reaching for the sky.

 

Their existence only aggravates my fury. I want to burn you out of my mind, out of my soul.

 

 

 

Where fire has been, I wish for fire to blaze again. I fan the smoking embers that remain, hoping that something will catch flame and rise back into that blinding inferno.

There is only one issue: there is nothing left to ignite. Everything that was alive has been incinerated.

 

 

 

Those little dried up pieces of my heart that were so quick to leap up in flame have now been exhausted. My heart feels like an empty husk. Surely there is still something left deep down inside that the fire couldn’t burn, but try as I may, there is no way to reach it with a spark.

I’m not one to pray, but I find myself calling out to a God I don’t believe in, begging for help, for relief from this agony, for release from you. In the same breath, I am begging for you to return.

 

 

 

Where fire has been there is now only ash. The tears of the heavens quench the parched ground leaving everything damp and gray. The torrential downpour seems unceasing as I gasp for breath, choking on sorrow.

Breathing is a luxury that you take for granted until your lungs can’t find air. It is hard to move under water, hard to hear. Everything is suspended and cold…so cold. I wonder if I will ever be able to move again, to feel warmth.

 

 

 

I realize I’m drowning as water begins to pour into my lungs. I can’t even scream. Those remnants of hope? They are gone, washed away by the flood of tears. My lungs begin to burn with a desperate need for air.

How can I still be longing for you when I am so close to death? Shouldn’t my mind be focused on survival? My vision begins to go dark as the oxygen in my blood is depleted. What is this power you hold over me?

 

 

 

Where fire has been, life finally begins to sprout anew.

Rising from the ashes like a phoenix, tendrils of new growth brazenly forge a path amongst the destruction. Somehow life finds nourishment in the ash.

 

 

 

The scars of the fire are still visible beneath the green, where they will remain for some time yet, but there is at last a promise of healing, of hope.

I am still unable to forget about you, but the searing pain has been reduced to a dull ache. I have only just caught my breath, but if you asked me to, I would gladly walk through fire again.

 

 

 

 

***

     Towards the end of the summer, I had become so unwell that I knew I wouldn’t be able to face returning to work for the fall season.  I decided to quit my job and return to school so I could have my emotional breakdown and only jeopardize my grades, rather than my professional life.  I knew I needed the ability to randomly call out sick, to let my emotions get in the way of my professionalism, and to fail.  I also knew that the only thing that would help me rebuild my self esteem and find any sort of meaning in life was to create.  Losing M had created a vacuum in my soul.  I felt like a black hole that happiness could not touch without being obliterated. 

     This book was the result of a project in my photography class.  The professor had given everyone the prompt “Where fire has been” and asked us to create a series of images that worked as a narrative addressing the prompt.  I immediately knew the assignment was perfect for acting as a catharsis for my devastation.  I felt like my fire had been put out.  After losing what I believed was the one thing in life that I valued more than anything (finding my soul mate), my daily grind became a soul-killing routine.  M had become my fire.  I had loved him more deeply and intensely than anyone before him.  I believed I had found the meaning of my life through my spiritual connection with him. 

      By mid September, M had reentered my life, and by October we had begun sleeping with one another again.  I was in the middle of this project when he came back on the scene.  When I first told him about it, he sounded fairly upset.  I desperately wanted to show him the finished project, but I was worried what effect the image of me standing with a flaming arrow pointed at his portrait would have.  I described the violent image to him, emphasizing that it in no way was meant to symbolize me actually killing him, it was just a physical representation of the anger I felt toward him. 

     I was finally able to show him the finished book in December after it had been returned to me by my professor.  He looked thrilled.  His joy did not appear to be tempered with the negative emotions I was expecting.  He viewed the image of me wielding a weapon at his likeness with a smile on his face.  I was relieved, yet confused.  Of course I wanted to be praised for my art, but what about responding to those words I had written?

     I had gotten what I had been longing for all those months.  M was back in my life and praising my art.  I finally felt like maybe I could live up to his artistry and genius.  That night, he told me he realized how important what we had together was.  He took me into his bed and told me I was the only woman he had ever wanted to have babies with.  I was hearing all the things I wanted to hear, but something felt off.  I just couldn’t buy any of it after how he had disappeared the last time.

     I tried to bury my reservations with memories of all the beautiful things that had happened that evening.  We had gone grocery shopping together.  It felt so domestic and wonderful even though we had only bought a frozen pizza.  He had laughed heartily at something I had showed him on the internet.  I had never heard him laugh like that before.  It was exhilarating to know that he shared my sense of humor.  He gave me a CD of his music from earlier in his career.  It had the first song of his that I had fallen in love with 3 years prior.  I listened to the album on repeat in my car for days.  The juvenile love songs seemed appropriate for this new turn of events.

     Looking back, I fear all of this was an act designed to lure me back in as he prepared to dump A.  I had finally bent so far over backwards for him that he thought I might be able to fill the role of his primary relationship.  I, however, had thought that battle was long won and I was the lone victor.  When I finally decided to unblock M on facebook later that week (ironically because I was beginning to trust him and not feel jealous of his lady friends anymore), I was shocked to see he was still friends with A on there.  Suspicious, I asked a mutual friend of ours if I could look at his facebook page on her computer.  I saw photo after photo of him with A up to a week prior to that date.  I was shocked. 

     I of course confronted him.  Knowing he was caught, he admitted they had been seeing each other but “I see her less than you.”  He told me that there were others, that there would always be others, that he couldn’t do monogamy.  I asked him if she knew about me.  His biggest mistake was telling me “no.”  I debated for a week and then I decided to contact her.  But that is a post for another day.

The Hoover Maneuver

July 25, 2012

M,

     I found it ironic to find your letter in my inbox this morning as I have been composing a similar letter in my head for the past week. It goes something like this:

     Five months ago, I was more secure in myself than I’ve ever been in my life. I was in no way shape or form looking for a relationship or even feeling as if I wanted one. I went out to your show, excited to get there just in time for your opening song and stood there shooting the breeze with Alex as we listened to your music. After your set, when you approached me I was sure you would walk straight past to mingle with your friends but you came right up to me. I was shocked and glad that you sought me out. As the night wore on, I was ecstatic that you were interested enough to continue conversing with me and that we had much in common. When you texted me that night I was amazed that you were interested enough to even do that.

     When we started hanging out, I had no idea how recently your break-up had happened and at first you completely downplayed its significance. I had the impression that you had fully dealt with it and had moved on. You spoke of it as if it were in the distant past. It was not until much later that I saw your sadness.

     When we were together, I thought I could see you beginning to fall in love with me. The way you looked at me, the way you spoke to me, the way you touched me…I thought I saw how you felt. One day I asked if you ever saw yourself being my boyfriend. It was not an offer or a request. I was just trying to make sense of what we were to each other. You could say we were friends, but that did not account for the hours of passionate love-making. You could say we were lovers, but that did not account for the hours of intense soul-searching conversation. I wanted to understand what you were looking for with me…what I was to you…what you needed from me, but you were never really able to say what it was.

     As I saw you becoming sadder with every passing day, I continued to reach out to you. I thought being with me would make you feel better…make you happy. I wanted to be there for you in the worst way when I saw your pain. That night we went out to dinner, it was so hard to see you so closed off. You gave me a lame excuse for your discomfort. I tried to buy it. M, the night you came over to my house last, you told me the real story of that night and it broke my heart. I had no idea that you were in that sort of pain. I’m miserable at the thought of having contributed to it. It was only on that last night that I truly began to understand the magnitude of what you have been going through by being with me at all. It made me look back on the progression of events and really begin to see things from your side. I know you tried to tell me before that night, but I didn’t really get it until then. I am so sorry.

     After that dinner I felt you pulling away…perhaps even a bit before. I was confused as to why you suddenly didn’t have any time for me. You were always busy but that had not stood in your way in the past. For awhile I believed you and kept trying to reach out, thinking that the issue was merely bad timing. Eventually, I started to fear you were avoiding me. I finally reached out to you on facebook because I couldn’t get you to come over for a face-to-face conversation. I reached out to you because I had spent 4 hours sobbing non-stop over the whole thing and I felt I couldn’t go on that way any longer. I have been crying for over a month now. For the last two weeks my mornings go something like this: I wake up and cry for something between a half hour and two hours and I try to make breakfast. Thinking about making breakfast makes me cry and feel nauseous, so it takes me five attempts or more to get through the ordeal. I force feed myself for an hour against tides of immense sickness. Every 4-6 hours I break down and cry some more. For the past 5 months, you have been my first thought every morning and my last thought at night. I think of you during every idle moment of the day. These used to be the points of joy throughout my day and they have become points of torturous pain. This past weekend was the first time I’ve been able to eat and get through the day without crying. That ended last night. I spent the night with someone else and it felt so hollow and empty and I couldn’t help but think of you and how different it felt to be with you.

     I have only cried this way over two people in the past…my college boyfriend who I dated for four months when he graduated and moved to Texas to go to grad school and wouldn’t let me move with him. We were in the height of our love when he left and I still think of him often, ten years after the fact. The other is my ex-fiance.

     So why am I crying so much? I have this friend, his name is M, and he is the most amazing person I have ever met. I fell in love with his music a few years ago, and then I got to know him as a person. I think he is a brilliant musician, a great writer, a hilarious and insightful person, a beautiful soul and a kindred spirit. I’ve never connected with anyone on so many levels as I did with him. He knows what I’m thinking before I say it, he knows how to touch me and seduce me, texts me throughout the day just to say hello, and makes me feel beautiful. When he no longer wanted to be a part of my life, I felt a gigantic hole that I never had known was there as no one had ever filled it so completely before. I don’t think he is replaceable. I’m sure the pain will lessen in time, as it always does, but I feel as if there will be a dull ache for some time to come.

     Never think I was using you just because I needed some generic boyfriend. I wanted you in my life because of what and who you are. You gave me the desire to trust someone completely with my heart again…something I was unsure I would be able to do until I met you. I know we still don’t know each other very well on many levels, but I was looking forward to learning more about you every time we visited. I believe you are the type of person I would love more in a year than when we were in the initial stages of “in-loveness” for lack of a better word.

     I don’t know what I did that made you think so poorly of me, but I never intended to manipulate you or force you into something you didn’t want. I didn’t know what you wanted. I don’t think you did either. For better or for worse, I love you and miss you like hell.

-D

 

***

     After the last text I had received from M, “It feels wrong to go so long,” I heard nothing from him for days.  I began making up stories in my head about how he finally had realized the error of his ways.  “A” had obviously come on too strong and now he was missing what he had with me.  I spent the next week composing a letter to him in my head, but I was too afraid to send it.  I was afraid I would push him even further away.  About a week after that text, a message appeared in my Facebook inbox.  M was finally taking the time to explain himself to me.  I received the message while at work, and I sped to the bathroom to read it on my phone, while crying my eyes out.  I immediately left early so I could respond with the missive I had been developing in my head all week.  I knew I would not be able to refocus my attention on work related duties.  I was sure that this was the sign that he regretted his decision to leave me.

     The letter M wrote to me was in essence a letter explaining how I had pushed him away with my behavior.  Some choice excerpts from his letter are as follows:

          “I won't try to pretend that I haven't been avoiding you, although not always consciously. Part of this has been because I became distrusting of you and a little intimidated when I finally became aware of just how skillful you were in the arts of manipulation.”

     This line is funny, because at this point, he is one month into a new relationship with another woman, and let us not forget that he was in a relationship with his ex girlfriend when he began his courtship of me.  Yet I am the manipulative one…yes.

          “This weird new fear of you, coupled with a growing feeling in my gut at the time that you were basically only worried about your own agenda and expectations, ignoring anything anyone said that might speak to the contrary, fed into my unease at even communicating with you at any great length.”

     This line is also fun, because yet again, it is describing his actions to a T.  I believe that writing this letter to me while sleeping with another woman falls entirely under the category “only worried about [his] own agenda.”

          “Simply put, I just wasn't ready to start thinking of myself in a new boyfriend role, because I was still grieving over my last relationship. The thought of being in a new one made me uncomfortable and a bit overwhelmed.”

     Again, hilarious because he is already in a new relationship (within one week of ending things with me).

          “I guess the feeling I was left with was that of being alone, or feeling anonymous, when I heard you talk about me like I was your boyfriend. It sounded like you were talking about someone else, or you could be talking about anyone else.”

     Funny, because it seems this is how he treats women, as replaceable objects that he uses to make himself feel better with no regard to their needs or well-being.

          “Please know, that I'm chronicling my neurosis here for you so that you understand me and us; I am not blaming you or accusing you of things.”

     Interesting, because it sounds to me as if that is ALL that is going on here: blame and accusations.

     I want to make it clear, that my commentary on this is all hindsight.  At the time, I believed that M got in over his head with the new girl, saw the error of his ways, and was trying to make amends with me once he realized I would be patient and loving with him while he healed from his last relationship.  I wouldn’t pressure him into being my boyfriend, I would be ok with his mood swings, I would love him unconditionally.  I wrote that letter to him and sent it to him via Facebook with the intent of proving to him that he could trust me.  As he slowly began reentering my life, mostly through texts, I thought we were working through these fears and learning to trust one another.  This was around the time when I had decided M was truly my soul mate.  Why else would I be in so much pain over the loss of him?  I could NOT get over him no matter what. 

     From a more omnipotent perspective, something far more sinister was occurring.  As a result of M falling off the face of the Earth, I had learned two things: do not pressure him and do not ask questions.  His letter made clear that MY bad behavior had pushed him away.  I was too demanding of him, wanting him to spend time with me and treat me with respect, and I was manipulative, asking too many questions and wanting to know too much about him.  At this point I was trained to ask nothing of M, graciously accepting only what he would offer me.  Otherwise, he would disappear again.  Yet, even when he was disappearing, he still kept in contact enough to keep me invested.  He would not just tell me he wasn’t interested and give me peace.  Every time I told him I wouldn’t contact him any longer, he’d immediately want to talk about it, reeling me right back in.  I thought it was a sign of his love for me.  Now I see it as the power game it truly was.

     I now see this letter from M as the blueprint for what allowed me to accept so much emotionally abusive behavior from him in the future.  It was a contract outlining his expectations of me, and reminding me of what would happen should I not fulfill those expectations, i.e. disappear again.  I learned to keep my misgivings to myself, lest he label me as clingy or jealous. 

     At one point, I got brave enough to ask him about A.  He confirmed my suspicions: she had tried to pressure him into a relationship but he wasn’t ready.  She wouldn’t listen.  She was kind of a bitch.  It was over.

     Again, this was all lies.  They were 3 months into a relationship when M finally agreed to see me in person and told me that things with her were over.  At this point I had quit my job and enrolled in school to finish my Bachelor’s Degree in photography.  I was dragging myself to classes and crying through lectures.  We were studying war photographers and photographers that documented domestic abuse.  I felt raw.  I had been working on a photo book for class detailing the experience of losing a “soul mate”.  It was a pain I could not have imagined prior to going through it.  When M agreed to reenter my life, my health started to turn around.  I began regaining the weight I had lost.  (The above photo shows me at the height of my weight loss.  The contrast has been adjusted to show just how sunken in and dark my eyes and cheeks were at this time.)  I could feel hope again, although it was a hesitant hope at best.  I was still afraid he’d disappear again.  Some time down the road, he told me he had agreed to see me in person again in order to break things off.  He claims to have been seduced by me into reinstating a physical relationship.  The main flaw in this claim is that things had already been broken off.  There was no need to further meet in person if that were the goal.  He merely had to stop contacting me.  I sincerely believe that his only purpose in reintroducing me into his life was to reel me back in sexually so that he could continue a relationship with me on the side when his girlfriend, A was out of town for work or when he needed supplemental attention to feed his Narcissistic drives.

     Like a vacuum, he had sucked me back into his chaotic world.

The Final Discard

April 29, 2012

Dear M,

     Tomorrow is a big day for you and I can see how your life is about to change drastically.  More than anything I hope to accompany you on this next leg of your journey.  I can see how much your life is currently in upheaval and I can’t wait to see what it resembles once you seize it and make it truly your own. 

***

     Judging by the length of this letter, I can see that this is when my faith became truly shaken.  No longer could I write pages, pouring out my love in words.  M. was quickly receding from my life.  He kept telling me how stressed out he was with a major career shift on the horizon, but would push me away every time I tried to offer support.  I continued extending invitations to him to be a part of my life, he continued to decline them.  At the very end, I invited him out to a dance party at a local bar.  He arrived with his married, female friend.  He spent the entire night at the back of the bar conversing with her and ignoring me.  I invited him to come home with me but he declined, stating that he didn’t want to go home with anyone.  As proof, he offered the example of how he turned down his married friend THAT VERY NIGHT who also wanted him to come home with her.  At the time, everything about that statement bothered me, but only recently have understood the details of why.  At the time I only interpreted it as his married friend being a bad wife, and making an inappropriate comment.  She is my physical opposite in every way, so I felt in no way could he have even have been tempted by the idea.  Knowing what I know now, I see a couple possible scenarios, neither one better than the other:

     1) Perhaps she said it, and on any other day he would have but was feeling crappy so declined on this particular night.  (Which would also imply that this has happened before.)

     2) Perhaps he made the whole thing up to make me jealous. 

     The only possible reason he could have had for telling me (regardless of its accuracy) was to make me jealous, which strangely wasn’t my reaction, being as I thought he’d never even entertain the thought of sleeping with that woman.  But now I understand that physical attraction has nothing to do with a Narcissist’s game.  It’s all about who he can manipulate and trick.  He wants people that will follow and worship him to the ends of the Earth, and from what I understand, this particular friend fits the bill.  She puts up with and seems to encourage his shitty behavior, and I see her as his wing girl for all of his triangulation games with every new girl he comes in contact with.  Not only that, but it has come to my recent attention that she is actually his ex girlfriend.  Who brings their ex girlfriend on a date?!?! 

     This was the last letter I wrote before the grand finale of our “relationship”.  M. pretty much avoided me through May and June, and at the very end of June, the night before I left town to go to my cousin’s wedding, he came over to my house to break it off.  He told me that we obviously want different things and that he can’t be what I need, etc. etc.  He emphasized how he just got out of a relationship and that I was obviously trying to coerce him into another one.  He spoke about my “manipulations” where I use alcohol as a truth serum to get him to talk about his past.  He criticized my jealousy, my neediness.  He abruptly ended the conversation, telling me we would continue it another time.

     I went on my trip, devastated.  Within one week, he had a photo on Facebook, of himself, taken by a new girl.  He is looking at her with such open and loving eyes.  He looks as if he adores her.  It is the same look he has been using on me for the past four months.  The photo was posted in the morning and his hair looks mussed as if he has been sleeping.  It seems obvious that they had spent the night together.  My heart ripped in two.  I stopped eating.  I ended up spending a good portion of the wedding locked in a bathroom stall crying my eyes out.

     A few days later, another photo.  Now they are clothes shopping together at a thrift store (wtf, he wears the same black t-shirt every day of his life).  Again, she is the photographer and he is the subject.  Looking back, I can see the gaudy yellow jacket he is wearing is indicative of the funky style of A. (his new conquest).  The caption reads “yes and yes” meaning yes to the man and yes to the jacket.  I felt sick to my stomach.  He didn’t even need to say a word to make me sick and jealous, she was doing all the work for him…and she had no idea.

     I knew she had no idea about me.  The entire time M. and I were together, there were no pictures, no Facebook communication, nothing at all public.  Since M. was not willing to acknowledge me as a girlfriend, it seemed like it would push him even further away for me to be taking those types of liberties.  My more vindictive side laughed at A’s public enthusiasm about spending time with M.  It seemed obvious to me that she would for sure try to coerce him into a relationship if she was already publicly claiming him via Facebook photos.  I figured it would be only a matter of time before M. realized his mistake and realized how special what he had with me was.  I had essentially spent four months with him as his lover and had only asked if he ever saw himself being my boyfriend.  I never once demanded that we make things official. 

     I was trying to let it go.  He didn’t want me.  He had rejected me.  I needed to move on.  I came home from vacation and went into a deep depression.  I still couldn’t eat.  I spent most of my days in bed.  Occasionally I sent him texts letting him know how bad I was feeling.  He responded by telling me I needed to let go.  I tried to go no contact, but he and I couldn’t seem to go past 5 days without contacting each other. 

     When I was finally on the verge of passing that 5 day mark of no communication, I received the text “It feels wrong to go so long.”  I responded, but I received no message in return.