The Moon, Is Shining In The Sky, Reminding Me, Of So Many Other Nights, But They're Not Like Tonight
--"But Not Tonight", Depeche Mode
With the advent of 2007 it has been almost a decade since Tara and I broke up. The strangest thing about that fact is how little I think about it. In fact, I almost forgot it's been ten years. If it wasn't for trying to remember dates involving other people in my life, I think there's a good chance that I could have forgotten the two of us went out at all. It's not that she didn't matter to me--because she did. Some of the most memorable coversations I've had were with her. She always had a gift for clever imagery and impromptu sayings--the whole "life is a jigsaw puzzle and I'm still working on the edges" saying is all her. I think it has more to do with the fact that she came in between two people who just happened to matter more to me, Breanne and DeAnn.
At the time, while I was spending the weekend out there in 1997, getting fitted for her prom, meeting her friends, and ultimately breaking up, I thought it would be impossible to forget about her. That was probably one of the worst weekends I have ever experienced. It started off bad and just kept getting progressively worse. The first night I was there we began discussing what it'd be like once she got to college. It was then that we collectively decided that it'd probably be a good idea to see other people. The second night I was there the glaring differences between our ages became all the more apparent as I failed to get along in any way, shape, or degree with her friends. It was clear that, aside from being into each other, we didn't have much in common. That night we decided that we would finish out the school year and break up once her prom was over. The third night I was there, everything came to hell and we broke up right then and there. By the fourth day, we knew it probably was going to be the last time we saw each other.
I've never had a plane trip where the entire time was spent on the verge of tears.
I thought for sure that pain, that misery, that heartache would last forever. If I was like Rob Gordon in High Fidelity and I were making a list of Top 5 all-time break-ups, she would have been on it. She would have been on it, for sure, because nobody had the audacity to break my heart while I was supposed to be visiting them on my own dime.
Yet, as I sit here writing about her, it dawns on me that, in the scope of things, there really wasn't much there. We'd barely been seeing each other for eight months. It had more to do with how quickly and completely I tend to fall for someone than actual sense of loss. In the scope of things, it took me a lot longer to get over the likes of Breanne and DeAnn, than it did her. Hers just felt more personal because it was a relationship I fully supported and didn't see coming. The others I kind of saw coming and so maybe I understood those partings more. Hers felt out of left field.
It just amazes me how many nights I spent thinking that that was it, that was my one chance at happiness and I would never find it again. I spent so much of the rest of that year and part of the next year trying to figure out how to move on that I didn't think I would ever see a night where I could be content with myself. And it wasn't like there is one night I could point to where I completely forgot about her. I mean--yeah, meeting DeAnn helped, but that didn't happen till July of 1998. Small pieces of Tara just kept disappearing, but it wasn't like it hurt less. It honestly felt like I was simply forgetting how much it hurt. It was as if my brain was refusing to tell my body how much pain I was actually going through and everyday I lost a small portion of specific words and specific feelings concerning those four days. Finally, I lost most of my memory about what exactly happened and why it happened. In a sense, she became wiped clean from the forefront of my brain. If I can concentrate, I can still remember everything, but those memories now reside in a part of my brain that I hardly ever visit. Those memories are hard to access, whereas the memories about other people I can recall at the drop of a hat.
So I find myself tonight thinking if I ever really was that distraught or ever that worried about never finding love again. Back then, you would have been hard-pressed convincing me that there would come a time where she simply didn't factor into my everyday thoughts. Back then, you would have only had to mention her name and I would have immediately grown despondent or sullen. Back then, she really was everything to me. Tonight, however, even though some of those memories have come flooding back to me, I don't think I'll ever go back to a stage where I ever hurt that badly over her again.
Ten years is a long time between something happening and your memory of it. It just doesn't feel as real. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it happened at all.
I don't know whether to be happy that I can't remember or sad that I can forget so easily. Perhaps I'm just feeling a little bit of both tonight.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
With the advent of 2007 it has been almost a decade since Tara and I broke up. The strangest thing about that fact is how little I think about it. In fact, I almost forgot it's been ten years. If it wasn't for trying to remember dates involving other people in my life, I think there's a good chance that I could have forgotten the two of us went out at all. It's not that she didn't matter to me--because she did. Some of the most memorable coversations I've had were with her. She always had a gift for clever imagery and impromptu sayings--the whole "life is a jigsaw puzzle and I'm still working on the edges" saying is all her. I think it has more to do with the fact that she came in between two people who just happened to matter more to me, Breanne and DeAnn.At the time, while I was spending the weekend out there in 1997, getting fitted for her prom, meeting her friends, and ultimately breaking up, I thought it would be impossible to forget about her. That was probably one of the worst weekends I have ever experienced. It started off bad and just kept getting progressively worse. The first night I was there we began discussing what it'd be like once she got to college. It was then that we collectively decided that it'd probably be a good idea to see other people. The second night I was there the glaring differences between our ages became all the more apparent as I failed to get along in any way, shape, or degree with her friends. It was clear that, aside from being into each other, we didn't have much in common. That night we decided that we would finish out the school year and break up once her prom was over. The third night I was there, everything came to hell and we broke up right then and there. By the fourth day, we knew it probably was going to be the last time we saw each other.
I've never had a plane trip where the entire time was spent on the verge of tears.
I thought for sure that pain, that misery, that heartache would last forever. If I was like Rob Gordon in High Fidelity and I were making a list of Top 5 all-time break-ups, she would have been on it. She would have been on it, for sure, because nobody had the audacity to break my heart while I was supposed to be visiting them on my own dime.
Yet, as I sit here writing about her, it dawns on me that, in the scope of things, there really wasn't much there. We'd barely been seeing each other for eight months. It had more to do with how quickly and completely I tend to fall for someone than actual sense of loss. In the scope of things, it took me a lot longer to get over the likes of Breanne and DeAnn, than it did her. Hers just felt more personal because it was a relationship I fully supported and didn't see coming. The others I kind of saw coming and so maybe I understood those partings more. Hers felt out of left field.
It just amazes me how many nights I spent thinking that that was it, that was my one chance at happiness and I would never find it again. I spent so much of the rest of that year and part of the next year trying to figure out how to move on that I didn't think I would ever see a night where I could be content with myself. And it wasn't like there is one night I could point to where I completely forgot about her. I mean--yeah, meeting DeAnn helped, but that didn't happen till July of 1998. Small pieces of Tara just kept disappearing, but it wasn't like it hurt less. It honestly felt like I was simply forgetting how much it hurt. It was as if my brain was refusing to tell my body how much pain I was actually going through and everyday I lost a small portion of specific words and specific feelings concerning those four days. Finally, I lost most of my memory about what exactly happened and why it happened. In a sense, she became wiped clean from the forefront of my brain. If I can concentrate, I can still remember everything, but those memories now reside in a part of my brain that I hardly ever visit. Those memories are hard to access, whereas the memories about other people I can recall at the drop of a hat.
So I find myself tonight thinking if I ever really was that distraught or ever that worried about never finding love again. Back then, you would have been hard-pressed convincing me that there would come a time where she simply didn't factor into my everyday thoughts. Back then, you would have only had to mention her name and I would have immediately grown despondent or sullen. Back then, she really was everything to me. Tonight, however, even though some of those memories have come flooding back to me, I don't think I'll ever go back to a stage where I ever hurt that badly over her again.
Ten years is a long time between something happening and your memory of it. It just doesn't feel as real. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it happened at all.
I don't know whether to be happy that I can't remember or sad that I can forget so easily. Perhaps I'm just feeling a little bit of both tonight.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
posted by mojo shivers @ 11:30 PM
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