sourcing

I came across something I had written when I ended my last relationship almost two years ago.   I was trying to figure out when exactly I had become afraid of falling in love, and I think I have found my answer.  Even now, I still wonder what I could/should have done to fix it. 

I am struck by the heaviness of the salted air. (it feels like a gentle suffocation) I walked over to my open window, hoping to get lost in the sounds but it only dug me deeper into the rut of myself and the reasons why I had hopped on a plane so last minute.  You can never really escape yourself or replace loneliness with adventure.  Shouldn't I have already figured this out?

I feel as though I am slowly dissolving.  (My self portrait consists of a glass of water and an alka-seltzer tablet).  I broke the life we spent the last 10 years building and I feel the enormity of that and it's too much for me to really absorb how quickly it will all disappear.  I can't figure out if this is how it is supposed to feel, if something's wrong with me or if I've just made a huge mistake.  

Our lives together were no longer working, on any level. We were ignoring each other, not having sex, doing anything to get out of the house, etc.   And even when we tried to reconnect, we couldn't... it was too far gone. I can handle feeling ignored, but what I couldn't take was the extreme boredom that washed over our lives. If losing my father taught me anything, it's that life is way too short and I could no longer be so cavalier about the passing years presiding over our disintegration.

When you spend so much of your life with someone else, you know exactly how they will react, what they are thinking/feeling and it's paralyzing realizing how deeply you have hurt them.  You know exactly what they are going through, almost feeling that before you experience your own feelings (a phantom heart).  I had stuck it out just to avoid hurting someone I loved so much.

I keep looking at the blank canvases in the corner, but I am too afraid to paint.  I know I will paint a monster, something tortured and ugly and frankly, I don't want to look at that right now and I don't want to remember this that way. My art doesn't feel like a release, it feels like someone pointing the finger angrily at me.

I have been watching the clock, waiting to feel better, hoping it's jet lag.  Although it's digital, I can still hear a ticking and it's maddening.   I want to crawl into the sea and be healed, but I have no energy to swim back out and that terrifies me further.  These last few weeks have been a landslide, watching everything I love crumble away, and I've become afraid of moving.

If I had it to do all over again, I am not even sure that I could.