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Summertime in my childhood was magical; my sisters and I had what essentially amounted to a park in our backyard & we spent a large portion (or what, in memory seems like a large portion) at our beachhouse in Northern California. Some years, we brought our housekeeper and her daughter with us, and some years it was just me, my parents and my two younger sisters. The water there is, by anyone else's account, cold - but to us it was just the ocean. The house backed right up to the dunes, and my mother could sit in the loft and look out the window to check on us while we played on the hot sand. My mother also taught us how to body surf - so armed with nothing other than our chattering teeth, goosebumps and fading one piece bathingsuits, my middle sister and I spent hours in the ocean catching waves. One afternoon, I was probably 7 or 8, making her right around 5, we were far enough out in the water so that we could not see the ocean floor, and could only touch it with our feet at that exact moment as the wave recedes. Swimming towards the the surf, laughing and breathing heavily from an hour or so of treading water, she and I were both pummeled by an unexpectedly large wave. It knocked us both underwater, turning us in circles. We were both small enough that in what was probably only 6 feet of water, if that, but we both lost the ability to tell which way was up and which way was down in that murky ocean water. When I finally found her hand, along with my barrings, I pulled us both up. Coughing, crying, and dry heaving from swallowing too much salt water, we traipsed back to the beach, defeated.
We both remember this event vividly.
I remember that exact feeling of confusion, eyes open to only see brown water circling around me, not knowing up from down or sky from sand. I remember exactly how it felt to finally find my sister's hand.
I have found everything so tedious lately. I don't think I will ever actually post this, because as I told my mother over one of our brief phone calls, no one wants to hear about my Musings Miserable.
I don't even want to.
Feel free to skip this one.
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| Maintenance may have fixed the leak, but I'm still dealing with Waterworld. |
The past couple of weeks, since my Dutchman left, I have felt like I've been just... treading water. Time has been punctuated by very little other than a raucous birthday celebration last weekend & a dinner party (of two) at a friend's house. I guess I am finally ready for summer to end. (Gasp!) Honestly, I feel like I might be losing my already precarious footing; fighting sadness, missing him, it washes over me without warning; I find myself crying at the slightest thing, overwhelmed by the even more minuscule. I just had two days off in a row from the shop, and for the first time in as long as I remember I had a hard time getting out of bed. Somehow, I walked out of the bookstore with what may very well be the most depressing book ever & I have devoured it, scribbling things in the borders, underlining passages. My mother is driving me a bit crazy, but then again - I'm driving myself a little crazy too. I still hear very little from the Dutchman, as he is busy at work during the week making up for time lost while across the Atlantic & currently busy with a bachelor party. He promises we'll chat Sunday, but I don't know when exactly. I do know that tells me he loves me and he misses me, which I don't doubt, but it is always immediately followed by 'I have to go to bed and/or a business meeting.' Okay, not usually both at the same time.
So now not only do I miss him, miss us, I also feel taken for granted, I guess... Just waiting around, hoping he has a free millisecond to shoot me a text. How is it even possible to feel taken for granted from the Netherlands? I have expressed - albeit a tad cryptically - that I am struggling to him but I don't think he gets it. It is so hard, and I get so stuck in my head, and have the propensity towards loneliness - this grief over the return to Earth has only amplified it. That comfort with him, that quiet comfort has now turned into a deafening underwater-like silence & I am struggling to come up for air. Chest heaving, I find myself thinking, I don't know how long I can hold my breath.
A shift happened during the Dutchman's visit, the tides shifted from Single Me to I-Have-a-Boyfriend-Lets-All-Go-On-Double-Dates-Me. And my life has yet to shift back. It can't, really. I am not single - yet I have no one to be my date on double dates. The reality is, before I met him I was fine being oh so singleandreadytomingle; I mean, I was not perfectly fine, but I was fine - I had dates with B----; I had distractions - I had the beach & flirting and I guess, most importantly, I had the possibility of... Well, the possibility of meeting someone like Him. I had the possibility of the Spark.
And I found that spark, and I fell in love with him, and now...
Now, I have his love, but I don't have him.
Really, I want him here. I know we're supposed to be all, "I don't need someone to complete me - I am a complete person. I want someone to compliment my wholeness" and all that bullshit, but I have come to realize - of me, this is not true. I felt most whole when I had his hand to reach out for.
I am heavy-chested and have trouble breathing. This loneliness weighs down on my chest, it weighs down my arms; this loneliness has me trying to catch my breath. I feel constantly as though I've been knocked over by an unexpected wave, grasping out for a hand, and finding the hand that I am grasping for is too far away to reach.
This is not the reckless me, the pity-party me; this is me knocked down by a wave but altogether surprised by the sea.
Sidenotes: This is not to say I have nothing to look forward to - some of my favorite people and I have plans this week. I just feel like something is missing. Because it is. Also! Goldi and the Doctor are going strong, he seems - from what I know - like a really good guy.
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