Carolina Blue

"A woman never forgets the man she could have had; a man, the woman he couldn't." -Anonymous


I hate that up until now, our story had no end. What I mean is that if our story were written down on paper the last sentence would have no period at the end. No period, or even a question mark at the end of our sentence; we are ungraciously reduced to an ellipses. Just three simple dots signifying no end in sight.

We lived our lives apart for different reasons, and I can't say that that was a good choice. Yes, after you I have loved. I've been loved. I've lost and hurt. I always thought I was going through what I needed to in order to find my way back to you. Yes, you. You were always there, as this unfinished chapter of my life. Was I ever there in the back of your mind?

Did you see us as we used to be? Playing in the park in the middle of the night or looking at the stars from your driveway after the party? What about rainy afternoons on the couch, or long bus rides or Denny's? Do you remember...at all? Maybe you don't. But I need you to know that all the letters and photographs are still in the back of my closet. Tied with a navy blue satin ribbon I used to wear in my hair. They've all faded by now I'm sure.

However, that's not what I am writing to say. What I really want to say is mean. It's bitter and immature and won't solve anything. It's really not polite but here goes: I hate her new last name.

I hate that she has the same last name that I scribbled in endless English notebooks when I was fourteen. And sixteen. And eighteen. And in college when I was about twenty. And for the last time I guess, just this year on a scrap of paper late one night after a terrible date with a man who wasn't you. He will never be you.

I don't hate her. She's someone I knew briefly yet don't know at all. She drifted into my life years ago and at the time I never thought I'd come to hate her, she was inconsequential at most. Now I hate with a passion what she represents.

No, if I'm being truthful about what I hate, it's the unfinished-ness of our situation. And also my foolishness. There I was, stupidly clinging to the hope of the ellipses, hope that sometime in some way we would find ourselves face to face again. And this time we would get it right.

We would not be fourteen and afraid of each other.

We would not be sixteen and too busy with the soap opera of high school to realize this was something special.

We would not be eighteen and too worried about making ourselves look like grownups.

We would not be twenty and living in different countries, or twenty five and you're saying "I Do" to someone else. It would just be us for once.

In some other time or place, we'd be free of the things that kept us apart. We'd finish what was started the first day I met you.

But now I hear you are a husband and a father. I think my heart stopped a little just writing that. As if writing somehow made it more real. And just like that-there is the punctuation mark I needed to see. It stings, of course. A burning pain that resonates within me, that woke me up and made me realize this non-ending I was clinging to so fitfully was really just postponing goodbye.

A non-ending may be the worst kind of ending that there is, but it's also the one that made me strongest. I am accepting of the fact that I had let you drift into my life for the last time and I was ready to open myself up for the opportunity of someone else. As long as I had my heart on hold for you, there was on way to allow anyone else in. And that wasn't fair to you, to hold you to that expectation. But I was also selling myself short, and that wasn't fair to me either. And now we're both moved on, in our own way. And for the first time that's OK.