On Monday night, I stood at the bus stop in the rain talking on the phone to my girlfriend about her day and about her mother and about her thesis. It was raining and I was tired but damn, was her voice healing.
Tonight I stood at the same bus stop alone. I wasn’t talking to my girlfriend because I don’t have a girlfriend right now. I feel broken.
In the Blink of an Eye
In the Blink of an Eye, your life can change.
In the Blink of an Eye, you can turn the hallway corner at school and see a girl in a white jumper that gives you pause. You pause, not because on that day she’s stunning (she certainly can be), but rather because on that day something deep down inside of you stirs. Something at a very innate level. You don’t know this girl in the white jumper and you don’t know what this feeling is – but My God, do you have butterflies.
In the Blink of an Eye, the spark can come out of nowhere. That spark you get with another person when you know something is undeniably right about being with her.
In the Blink of an Eye, you can understand that you were brought to this very place and moment and that she was brought to this very place and moment for a reason, and quite on purpose.
In the Blink of an Eye, the world can disappear. A hug between a girl who has a boyfriend and a boy from North Carolina can very easily and very naturally turn into a kiss. A kiss that – I would swear on this – stopped the Earth from rotating for about 10 seconds. The type of kiss that writers write about. That filmmakers dream of filming. The type of kiss that everybody wants as their first kiss with someone. A kiss that you will unquestionably remember for all the days of your life.
In the Blink of an Eye, the image can pop into your head. You know the image. The one you get when you envision – sometimes in the most unlikely of situations – your future with the girl standing in front of you. On a busy Roman road, with your arms wrapped around in front of her, palms on her tummy, looking at furniture. Totally unexpected and totally something you’ve never done before. But somehow it’s comfortable and it isn’t fleeting. It’s real.
In the Blink of an Eye, the girl can look at you with arguably the biggest and brownest eyes in all the world and say things to you that make you look up into the heavens and thank God for inexplicably blessing your life. Things like “Jonathan, don’t go back to North Carolina. It’s not fair that your family and friends get you for years and I for only few months.” Things like “Jonathan, we have more things to do together. We have to walk on street at Christmas with big jackets and scarves. You have to see me play volley. We have to visit Venezia together.”
In the Blink of an Eye, your life can change.
In the Blink of an Eye, the girl in the white jumper can take away all those “I love you”’s that she’s said in the last 2 months. “I don’t love you. In the past or now. I’m sorry.” Everything else has been real, she says. She was saying those words for a month before you returned them to her. And when you finally did – on a cobblestone street in the middle of Trastevere – she wrapped her arms around you and pressed her body against yours as if you had just saved her from the deepest and darkest ocean in the universe. You know what that feels like? First to have someone react like that when you tell her you love her? It’s magical. It really is and it fills your heart with something not of this world. And then to have someone say they want to take those words back? I would rather someone cut off my fingers one by one.
In the Blink of an Eye, you can go from not having a worry in the world, to hanging on for dear life. That’s what it feels like right now. I feel like I just caught a glimpse of the summit…the beauty and the clarity and the views seemed spectacular. It was in grasp, but as I was taking that last step, the rock underneath my feet gave way. And now all I’ve got is one hand holding on – slipping more and more by the second.
In the Blink of an Eye…the girl that so suddenly came into your life, like a whirlwind touching down, could just as suddenly be gone from your life.
It’s real and it hurts like hell. Not because I don’t have a girlfriend right now, but rather, because I feel like it’s my fault. I feel like I keep blowing it and I don’t know what to do about that.
Something is terribly wrong with me and I don’t know how to fix it.
10 comments:
I'm sorry about your situation. You feel like it's your fault, but is it really your fault? Can you look back and say you actually caused this to happen? Or is it just a nagging feeling in the back of your brain that makes you think it's your fault even though you can't think of anything you did to make things turn out like this?
There are a number of conclusions you could come to:
1.) It wasn't your fault. That's just the way things turned out. Maybe the broad was just a two-faced bitch. She was a woman after all.
2.) The way you worry about messing up relationships has become a self-fulfilling prophesy and either consciously or subconsciously you mess things up. In this case, I suggest you change your thinking by changing your confession. You know, that whole faith thing; speaking things not as though they were, etc.
3.) Just take some time for self-reflection. Maybe things will become clearer.
Regardless, good luck with your situation. I'm sure you'll be able to work things out for yourself. A few drinks probably wouldn't hurt, either. Hang in there.
Hey, man: I posted a video on my blog that might cheer you up. At least I hope it does. It got me through some recent bad times--I mean some really, really bad times. Maybe give it a shot. Good luck.
J- I feel for you, bro. I know that sort of pain, and it sucks. Hopefully you are starting to feel a little better by now, but even if not, know that this girl may have taken back all her previously stated love just so that she can make herself feel better about what she knows is a painful thing to do. For her to tell you that she loves you often enough to make you believe it and then to say that she never meant it tells me that she really did mean it, but that now she wishes that she had not ever said it. Maybe that helps her convince herself that she never felt so strongly as she said that she did. It is a bitter pill to swallow, and I pray that you will not become timid nor hesitant to venture forth again to live. Be intentional about living and live well. These things happen and will always happen, but I know that you will make it through this to live another adventure soon enough.
we don't see things the way they are; we see things the way we are
somewhere deep inside beneath the pain, you must be relieved. She apparently made the decision for you.
commitment, whenever and whomever it falls upon that you should enter into one with, isn't something you can force. It happens day after day, a decision you make in the morning when her breath is stale, a decision she makes in ten years when you're bald, a decision you make when she has stretch marks from bearing your children- it's in a place where the magic is gone but the will to be with that person remains.
"Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her, so he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life...charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised"
I think the day she quits trying is the day the divorce lawyers can smell you coming. The point wasn't perfection, it was choice. To choose to love someone...
jt- if you're looking for a perfect Christ-like husband then you must be single and you'll remain that way. My husband is faithful, and appreciates my efforts at making our household and our relationship work, and we are both far from perfect and we both make mistakes. And there are plenty of times that I wonder about my efforts- then I realize that in a world where the average life span of a marriage is less than seven years, we've been together for eleven. Before I embark on a tirade about being unable to understand why people walk around in miserable relationships waiting for someone else to make them happy and fill them up, I'll just say that your argument is misdirected. Let's remember J just got dumped. But I'm gonna have to say, for as much as I have come to know of him, I think that he's not going to be happy until he realizes the difference between falling in love (or, LUST, if you will) and true love. And true love, as I have said and will continue to believe for the rest of my days, is a choice. It's not self-sustaining, that feeling we all get when love is new. And yes, women everwhere are living up to the Psalm woman.
jt- two more things- apparently you're in a blooming relationship. I hope your significant other doesn't mind that you are not even going to make the effort unless he's perfectly Christ-like.
Second, if you read the verse, it never says she perfect, it just says her efforts sustain her household, that she makes smart decisions and that she does good by her husband, never leading him to harm through her actions. I don't think that's too much to ask for.
now that would be pointless :)
Yes things change, but its not something you can fix. Some days things can be, the next they can't.
Christa - I hope you mean commenting would be pointless, since you have already dismissed J Holden's feeling as lust and you have cast shadow on how Christ like I am.
guys - sorry for being AWOL. it would be difficult to describe all the happenings of the last 2 months, nor do i particularly want to.
you guys are all great, even if some of us disagree with each other, which is okay. thanks for the comments and support.
i wasn't exactly dumped, rather we took a few days and took a few breaths away from each other. we have since continued our relationship.
i don't know if you're right about the "love" thing, dennis.
i don't know if this girl is the one for all time. i know that we are different in some respects, and exactly the same in other respects. and i know that we both want like hell to stay together.
i'll take some time to write soon guys.
in other news...my family is coming to visit tomorrow!!!! woooo hooooo!!!
my parents, 2 sisters, one husband, and my little niece. oh i cannot wait.
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