...without guilt, which is also an art

for the promise of something more

i wake up next to jeremy with my eyes puffy and swollen from the night before. i can barely open them. he has seen me at my worst but things are different now. i feel too vulnerable having him see me when i look exhausted and ugly so i keep my hair covering parts of my face. cleo is between us, curled up like a perfect croissant. i can smell her warmth and i can hear her content sleepy sighs in the morning darkness. i have missed this. i reach out for her and jeremy’s hand reaches to do the same. another deep content sigh. i feel so warm and safe here, cozy and happy being in this bed with the both of them. i hate that i can still feel this way, i hate that several little moments like this can make me me wish nothing has changed even though too much has changed, and i hate that i feel so sad knowing this illusion will shatter once jeremy opens the curtains to let the morning light in.

sometimes being around cleo and jeremy is painful. it can feel like a brutal reminder of something so beautiful that didn’t work out for reasons that are beyond me and beyond him. sometimes, that pain can feel so acute and so overwhelming that it catches me in my chest and i feel it hard to breathe. it’s been over a year and that feeling can still worm it’s way into my chest and leave me feeling disoriented and heavy. i am not beneath admitting that those are the days where i wish i could go back in time to put a bandaid on the things that i know are impossible to fix only so it could have given us a bit more time to relish in the joy that is the three of us. the worst days are the best days. the days where the three of us are sprawled out on the couch, watching tv, half heartedly scolding cleo for begging for bits of food but always giving in while rolling our eyes at each other, harshly critiquing whatever we are watching, laughing together, resting my head on his shoulder, ignoring all our past resentments, our bitterness and our hurts, it feels like i am peering into the life we were supposed to live, the one that our parallel selves are living in another timeline. they are happy and most importantly, they have figured out how to love each other.

several times in the last couple years, i would ask my mom why she doesn’t date. i would joke with her saying we could sign her up for a dating website and i would help her fill out her profile and choose photos. she would shake her head and say it’s because she just doesn’t want to. i believed her and left it alone but i secretly hoped she would find someone she deemed interesting and kind enough to pique her interest. my mom is beautiful and i don’t say that just as her daughter. i would say the same if i were a stranger and i saw her in the produce aisle at the grocery store, selectively and gingerly picking out kale or bok-choy. when she smiles, her eyes smile with her and light brown freckles smatter across her face in a way i always found charming and childlike. i have always thought my mom was prettier than me. i was never envious or resentful of that fact, it just is. she tells me she doesn’t want to date because she doesn’t have the time or the energy, plus, who is out there? i didn’t understand that then but i understand that now. i understand my mom’s evolving instinct to protect her space, her feelings and her beauty even at the risk of romantic loneliness. i ask her if she is lonely, when it’s just the two of us, and she always says the same thing.

i was dating someone and now, i am not. i realized, maybe a little too late, that the idea of dating someone made me feel wily and claustrophobic. maybe it is because it was the wrong person, a handful of traits that i knew would not be compatible with mine and i would eventually become more bored, more distant and at worst: cruel. dating is strange. you spend time with someone, convincing yourself that something different is good, that the things you found important before are different now and maybe, just maybe, because the standards you have long held didn’t lead to the ending you expected, you justify ditching them and all of this - this being everything- is easy to fool yourself into thinking it’s refreshing because it’s new. my friend told me i was just ‘experimenting’ when i told her i was dating someone new. i tried telling her i knew what i was doing and that it was intentional and on purpose. she disagreed with me and as she shook her head, told me that we all go through this phase. later, i told her i ended things with the person i was seeing because i didn’t want to be responsible for another man’s feelings. i tell my mom and viv that i worked too hard to become independent after my relationship with jeremy and i decided i don’t want to give up even the tiniest bit of it. time is the most valuable thing i can give someone. i don’t care if it sounds cold or cruel: i don’t want to give my time to anyone i don’t find worthy of it. my time is my love and my love is my time.

i wondered if i’ve lost some of my romanticism or i wonder if i’ve become colder in the heart but i don’t think i have. i think i’ve become kinder and softer to my own heart and to myself and my understanding of my own needs and my wants to be happy and content feels like a level of love and care i haven’t experienced until now. this is how i always wanted to be loved, i suppose. a love that allowed the freedom to grow and to thrive, to make mistakes, to try new things, to fail miserably, to be selfish at times, to be indecisive, to be true, to be honest, to be silly, to give and take. a love that understood the bliss that comes with patience.

this year, i’m understanding that i have to love myself and always love myself a hundred times more than that. this year, i want to devour as a form of art without guilt, as a way of pleasure without guilt, as a way of love and living without guilt.

margaret atwood

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mary oliver

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always and never forget:

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