A Matter of When

Never ‘if’, only when.

I should know better, and I do.

I still have crippling self-doubt.
I go through periods of time where it feels like all of the magic has left the world.
I am beginning to see the correlation.

I have dubbed these times “the nothing”.

The hardest part of a two day drive is the second morning. That halfway-there feeling.

Closer but still so fucking far away.

The best part is that first morning, you feel like you have all the time in the world, everything is beautiful and new.

Nothing but possibilities ahead of you.

But you gotta sit in the car for 11 more hours to get there.

I am okay with sitting and waiting.

At least I try to be.

I used to be impatient, and greedy mine mine mine now now now.

Not now.

I want what I want, just as sure as I am about what I don’t want.

I got a phone call about an ex this morning. At the end she said ‘sorry for putting you through that.’

Nothing to be sorry for.

I am really okay.

On the surface it looks like I hang on way too long, get too invested, hurt way too much.

But I don’t.

Not unless it’s unfinished.

The ex in the phone call, I was done. It was over. I had no angst or remorse. Just done.

The one before that too, his girlfriend messaged and asked me to stop talking to her man, so I did.

It was easy, before she said a word I already knew.

He said he would make a hammock into a sex swing and I said ‘I fucking love you.’ Casually.

“No.”

“No what?”

“You’re not allowed to love me” he said.

I replied, “it’s been a year, what did you think was going to happen?”

He didn’t have an answer.

Just said ‘stop’.

So I did.

I stopped. It was finished, and I won’t speak to him again. I know this.

Thread severed.

But what of the unfinished ones, the ones that linger, the ones that wrench my guts and sneak into my heart at night, appearing in dreams so I wake up to experience the loss all over again.

I couldn’t reconcile it. I didn’t understand.

I also know, historically speaking, if I have my mind on something it comes, without fail.

Not necessarily on m timeline, but it comes.

So did the answer.

We aren’t done.

It’s that simple and that complicated.

My girlfriend asked me how am I always “swimming in dick”. Her words. I am not really. But it was hella funny to hear her put it that way.

“You are not going to like the answer” I said.

Patience. No ego. Let them come and go.

It takes a lot of faith in my gut feelings about someone.

Giant was a prime example. Even when he was with her we still thought about each other. Sent random messages and songs, he would even come over to test his piousness until he wasn’t pious at all and we had to stop that. We couldn’t not talk to each other, kept erratically messaging each other just to make sure we still existed, and we did. And when he came back, I knew why. We weren’t done. And this last time with him was so much more satisfying, I knew when he was leaving and it didn’t hurt. Now I can let go.

Contract fulfilled.

I have been learning my lessons.

Gelfling was a rough one, I didn’t know how to handle his absence. It’s been 3 years. We still talk from time to time, like today.
Honey why are you surprised by how you are feeling? Did you forget what I am?

Spoke to the Swain boy today too.

There is a vast amount of difference between my handling of the first two and the last two.

I have attained some semblance of Zen about it.

Win, win really, I spook them less when I am calm.

That is why they came to me in the first place. Looking for peace.

I would like to say I KNEW the Last One would be back, but I admit, I lost my faith for a bit, on the second day of the drive, feeling like forever before we would get where we were going. One more message into the ether. And there he was.

It’s that simple and that complicated. He is geographically close to me right now and I can’t see him yet.

My faith is restored. I knew we weren’t done, I didn’t want to be.

Now it’s just a matter of when.