but you'll never see the end of the road while your traveling with me

keep art alive; art by tara mcpherson

it is strange how it happens, how confusion turns to clarity, as if the stars in the sky suddenly turn into beacons of something close to truth.

i wished for your return for years, it was always that secret longing that i tried to tuck away and scoff at as nonesense, and deny; but in actuality it was you i wished for on stars, and on the toss of coins into various bodies of water. and then one day i did tuck it away, or more honestly i let it go. i had to. you had let me go so long before, and i wanted to live; and, you cannot live an authentic life if your heart is floating out there in the ether, trying to re-attach itself to someone who is now far and away.

and live i have, maybe not happily all the time, but not unhappily all the time, either. i have amazing children and the keenest of friends, i have a career even though i loathe to admit it sometimes, and i have my writing and music. and, i have gone on and let myself really love again.

so, thank you for knocking on my door, and thank you for acknowledging what we meant to you, what i meant to you. and i honestly wish you the best of everything, and i am over here so proud of you for taking these rough steps at self-awareness and healing. but, i cannot be yours anymore.

even though there is a part of me that would love to try, i know that part of me is still wavering in that often alluring sense of nostalgia, and the rest of me - well she is quite happy to be living in the now. and, although it often feels impossible, and although i more than often feel that i falter and fail at it, i am in love.

and, i've given up on love before, it was my protection, and a control issue, and a defense that i learned from the pain of loving you. and no, i don't blame you for it, not at all; i am actually quite grateful for all that you did teach me about love. but, i am not willing to give up on love anymore, either.

love is not disposable, and it is not replaceable either - not even by someone who was once very incredible to me. so, i'm willing to take the tough roads, to not give up even when there are obstacles and doubts, because i still very much believe in love's possibility. i hope you find that for yourself, in this life, too.

thank you, my dear friend, for everything; but i think it is time to say goodbye to who we used to be, and hello to the friends we are meant to be now.

"now i'm walking again to the beat of a drum

and i'm counting the steps to the door of your heart

only shadows ahead barely clearing the roof

get to know the feeling of liberation and relief
hey now, hey now

don't dream it's over."

don't dream it's over (live) ~ neil finn

it really don't matter

i wish that i had the spirit and clarity that you seem to be dangling out to me from threadbare sweaters and well-labeled suit jackets. i'm the one who speaks in lyrics, my friend, since when do you? and you say to me in the simplest of terms that you learned how to love from me, and i laugh because truly i feel clumsy, and a catastrophe, in regards to love. you knew that already, didn't you? but it is never all that simple, is it?

"oh, hold on to me.

i'm gonna get you out

i'm gonna set you free.

to a place that i've heard on the radio.

never sleeps.

i'll get a job in a bar,

you could be a waitress and serve cheap cigars

to fat mustachio men in suits,

you'll look cute.

fuck what they say

fuck it if they talk

it really dont matter.

we're going to new york."

new york ~ stephen fretwell

i never left you for a banjo

i think you still remember me as a girl who taught you to drive, and i know i remember you as the boy who helped me learn to trust. i know we still close our eyes and see the kids we were, driving down the coast every other day because we had nothing else to do. back then they all knew us for what we showed them, and you knew how to fit in with anyone and everyone. they all loved you, and as you held my hand i felt bold and brave, and almost healed. you would light my cigarette and laugh at how fast i smoked, kiss my lips and tell me i was beautiful. we were beautiful together.

and i remember that night, twisting up the road in all that fog, you telling me to pull over to the side of the road. i turned to face you and the tears fell, as you half-whispered to me things that night that no one else knew. i took your hands in mine, felt how much you were shaking. and, i showed you my scars then. we traded the stories and let each other breathe them in, and we held each other until we were stronger. i think we sat there for hours, together.

and later, sitting at your extended family's house, we smiled at each other and i knew right then that i loved you with every piece of who i was. yeah, i remember it, of course i do; how could you possibly think i'd forget? but, we were kids, and we have grown. i have learned to breathe and be brave all on my own now, even though i do miss you; i will always miss you.

but, these new things you see, i wonder if it is really me, or just a memory of who i used to be. have i just become a symbol of the things you feel you may have lost? because sometimes the past can be seen that way, a fading black and white image of what came before; and that less then vivid picture can often seem so much better than what is now. she was right, though, when she wrote me that i am tired of being a symbol, and that i just want to be seen as me. once upon a time you saw me as me, more than anyone ever had before. but, i wonder if the only me you see now is that once upon a time me. i'm guilty of it, too. i know i see you as that boy from before, the one that was near impossible to let go of. and perhaps that is the point of this all, to recognize what we meant to each other and say goodbye.

"i'm trying not to move

it's just your ghost

passing through

i said i'm trying not to move

it's just your ghost passing through

it's just your ghost

passing through

and now

i'm quite sure

there's a light in your platoon

i never seen a light move

like yours

can do to me

so now i'm wishing

for my best impression

of my best angie dickinson

but now i've got to worry

cause boy you still look pretty

to me

but i've got a place to go

i've got a ticket to your late show

and now i'm worrying cause even still

you sure are pretty

when you're putting the damage on."

putting the damage on ~ tori amos

and i meant every word i said

keep art alive; art by tara mcpherson

"one of these days we should talk about what happened between us." was the message that was left on my phone, from the boy who broke my heart in ways no one will ever be able to break it again. it is only once that you love in that complete abandon way, when you have not really been hurt by love yet. you can love again, and will love again, but it will never be exactly the way it was that first time.

if i had to guess at how much loving him changed me, or how many things it influenced in my life, i would still be underestimating it. and, i am honestly not being overdramatic, or romanticizing it, at all; it was just that impactful. he was everything to me at that time in my life, and for the most part we loved each other beautifully.

but, it ended, and even though we managed that impossible task of staying friends with one another, it still was over. nothing since has ever been that hard to heal from. i did heal from it, though, and we both went on with our lives. the hardest part was in the knowing that we both still loved each other, but that there were impossible things that we could never overcome.

the details, well they have been thrashed around and most people who know me well have heard it before. things from his past colored who he decided he was, and there was absolutely no way for me to fit into that definition. there are people who would argue it with me, and say that my belief in what we shared was denial, but i was there and i know what i felt; i know what was true.

this all happened years ago, though. before my children and his career. i mean, we were still kids then, even though i know that neither of us ever had much of a childhood. what on earth could be said about it now? is this some kind of rob gordon re-hash of what went wrong in past relationships? is he looking for some kind of closure, when we both know if we do not have it now, we never will have it? is he on the verge of some kind of important life change and wants to understand?

all it would take is a phone call to find out, yet i am scared to death to ring him back. the whole thing makes me feel like that girl i once was, vulnerable and naive. i am not sure what i would even want to say anymore except that i will always love him, though i know i have grown far and away from the girl who believed in us at all. i still remember that night on the beach when they all told me what he couldn't, the way he wouldn't look at me anymore, how much i wanted to just shut my eyes and make it all go away. but, it happened. it is all part of the story of who i am, and i've run it through my head, and written it in and out of pages and prose, i do not know that there exists anything else to say about it.

i am still a girl. he is still a boy who ultimately chose other boys instead of me. i am still the one who had to deal with a rejection that called into question every shred of my feminity, self esteem, and existance. i had to look at all the things we shared and wonder how they could happen at all if i was not even the right gender for him. i had to make peace with who i was, and who he was, and what that meant for who we once were. i do not think i want to pull open those particular scars and scratch at them again.

the last time i saw him it was so surreal. we both were shaky and all nerves. we still could not look at each other some thirteen years later. he took an old photo album of mine, the one that had pictures of us in it, and never returned it. he winced when he saw pictures of my girls, and i winced when he talked about doug. and now four years from that awkward meeting he wants to talk about what happened between us. what could either of us really say?

i could tell him i love him, because i always will. it is impossible to love someone that much and just turn it off completely. it changes, it evolves, it loses hope and becomes something different, but it is still love. and perhaps he would say he loves me, too. but, what will it change?

i will still be the girl i am today who is struggling with her heart, and loving someone else who is equally impossible just not in terms of gender. would it just be a reminder that as much as things change we all stay the same? that i am still misguided when i fall in love, that i do not take enough care in protecting myself when it comes to truth of the heart. or, is there something that could be said that would heal my heart, and wake me up from all that i feel right now, make me either believe that what i want is possible, or cause me to realize i need to let it go?

i suppose all the answers i need are already inside of me, and all i need to do is let myself recognize my own truths. we all already know the answers, don't we? we just have to learn to open ourselves up enough to see.

thanks for the song, andrea. i think tonight i really needed it.

"you should've seen by the look in my eyes, baby

there was somethin' missin'

you should've known by the tone of my voice, maybe

but you didnt listen

you played dead

but you never bled

instead you lay still in the grass

all coiled up and hissin'

and though i know all about those men

still i dont remember

cause it was us baby, way before them

and were still together

and i meant,

every word i said

when i said that i love you i meant

that i love you forever."

keep on loving you ~ r.e.o. speedwagon