Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day

[DenverBachelor]

That's the title of a poem by Delmore Schwartz. It is a good poem and I suggest that everyone read it when they get time. He never really recovered from his parent's divorce. My parent's were separated for seven years but eventually got back together.

 

Today was obviously Thanksgiving, but I don't have any family in Denver. So I went out to a bar to grab a drink and get a hamburger. I then spent the time walking around Denver to see the places my ex and I used to hang out. I know I'll get flamed for this, but it doesn't really matter.

 

Some things in Denver have changed but most things have stayed the same since early 2008. That was the first time we met again since meeting in Vegas in 2006. We stayed at the Hyatt together and that's the first time we made love. So I walked around that area and went inside. It was strange how exactly the same everything looked compared to our first time there together.

 

I went outside and walked past the parking lot where she would have parked. I wasn't really sad, but more nostalgic than anything else. Writer's Square on Larimer has been completely remodeled. A statue called, "The Gossiping Ladies" had been removed -- it was one of her favorites.

 

I sat down on a bench and, in my heart, asked God why time was so linear yet so many spaces and areas were still exactly the same. Why is it that time goes in one direction and what purpose all things have when things move forward. Why our family will eventually die and why all things come to past. I asked why is it that so many things in our lives remained unfinished and if this was the true nature of growth and discovery.

 

I was guilty of taking days for granted during our relationship, but more potently, I was guilty of taking everything for granted in my life. I saw a homeless guy asleep next to a steam vent on the sidewalk. Thanksgiving -- and that guy had absolutely nothing.

 

That made me realize that, on a broader level, I had nothing to be complain about. I have a nice job and a nice place in Denver, and here he had nothing. It doesn't seem fair, and that raised questions about the nature of life itself and of God's existence.

 

Although I'd like to step back into time and change my mistakes, I cannot. People will say move on but every situation is different and, if you yourself have dated many times, you will understand what I mean when sometimes the person we are with is truly a special one and not just another corner or chapter in life. Maybe not -- perhaps I am too sentimental and naive in that respect.

 

Interesting how we take for granted the sun, too. Every day it rises and burns like it did the previous day. For billions of more years, it will continue to do so. But even the sun can't escape the depth of time and eventually it will die and end up a white dwarf. Everything will come to past -- every building will fall, every animal will die and any evidence that some intelligence that was once on Earth will eventually be erased.

 

So in my mind, even moving forward, I ask myself what really is the ultimate lesson in life. Even if I get into another relationship and that to dies, where do I move from there? I think we all like some form of stability and continuity in our lives, but the simple fact is that everything will reach it's end-point.

 

It would seem that it isn't the thousands of destinations in our lives that have any significance, but the journey itself. Hindsight is 20/20, and it is a sad testament to our lives that it takes great mistakes and failures to push us forward when we can't take what we learned and repair things in our past. Every experience and every mistake gives us a lesson learned so we do not repeat the mistakes in our past. Someone once said that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.

 

Letting go is a curious thing. In fact, letting go is a two-faced sword. We never really "let go," but can only move on and turn those failures and mistakes into lessons learned which than become strengths. But as we get older, the mistakes and lessons learned grow and grow and we are forced to occasionally look back and ask ourselves, "had I known then what I know now, where would I have been today?" Why did I make those mistakes when I knew even then that they were the wrong decisions to make. I guess complacency is an answer -- and the reliance that the present would always continue to slip into the future as it is and that we would never suffer loss.

 

I envy those who can truly move on, but in my heart, I think that they, too, often reflect on the past and ask the same questions I do.

 

I guess the entire point of wanting a second chance is from the desire to go back and time and rectify our past indiscretions. It is the closest we'd ever get to a time machine and that second chance would allow us to take the knowledge we have today and apply it to the mistakes we made yesterday.

 

But no matter what we do, time will continue to march forward and drag us with it. Sometimes I feel time is a glass wall that continues to push me away from things that I can see so clearly on the other side -- yet can never touch or feel again.

[dreams13]

wow that is beautifully written, it is so weird that what you wrote and feel is exactly how i feel. sometimes i feel like some things are so small to worry about when you see someone homeless on the street and you think to yourself wow, i have family and i have a nice job and nice place to live.

 

but i know what you mean about loving someone. unfortnately i think sometimes it is called unrequitted love. i still love my ex from 10 year ago and everytime i have tried to close the door, really, and scream and yell, somehow i let him back into my heart everytime. i ask god all the time why we keep this vicious circle going, it is getting us both nowhere and I know in my heart that so he says he doesnt love me anymore and hasnt since 2001. but yet the texts, the phone calls and him checking in make me think otherwise. i do not contact him, he does all that himself.

 

sometimes i think that there is that one person wether you marry them or not, have kids with them, that you have a special bond with. it is amazing to me how many people i have realized have this with someone in their present or past. that one person that you would drop everything for and walk a thousand miles for, that person you compare everyone else to and maybe shouldnt. its crazy to me, and after being in several relationships with men who were divorced, sometimes they too can not let the memory, of their x die, and it def is not fair to anyone. why do we hold onto people like that, why do we form those bonds and honestly when i think about it, my x and i are two different people from two different worlds in some way. but yet we have a bond that honestly i think he would drop it all for me if i asked him to and he has...i have seen him do it to other women he has dated. for me it is him, the mere thought of him and i would do anything for him, and he knows it. maybe that is why he doesnt leave me alone, because i am the only one who has never said no to him.

 

its amazing...when i think about it there is that one person out there that loves you for you, but yet doesnt want to be with you. something has got to give. things do end and time does move on, but honestly i dont think true love ever dies, and the more you run from it the more it will come and find you eventually someway somehow.

[mmk1]

DB, you are right, none of us can go back and change the past. I can feel your hurt through your post and you have everyone's support and compassion.

 

At some point, you do have to make the decision to accept and move on, rather than dwell upon it. You both will have the same great memories but recognize that that was then and this is now. I go by places with great memories of my ex all day long, but I remind myself that is my past and not my future.

 

If you find you cannot accept and let go by yourself, please seek some help as I have done. It did not cure things over night by a long shot but it definitely helps, especially when you do not have a support system in Denver.

 

Importantly, you need to remember it takes two people to make or end a relationship. You need to stop blaming yourself for the end of the relationship and forgive yourself for any mistakes you feel you made.

 

People on LS are supportive and I hope you continue to post. I wish you the best.

[leap83]

Beautifully written.

 

Here, I am. One of those nights when I feel being philosophical so here it goes. Sometimes I wonder if my life flashed before my eyes so that I can see everything properly - all of the mistakes I have made, all of the time I have wasted, all of the times I worried about the dumbest things imaginable, all of the times I have taken someone or even life for granted - whether it would make me learn my lesson? I am a strong believer in second chances - I believe that people deserve second chances because no one is perfect and eventually everyone will come to that point and screw up. I have given plenty of those during my life and then, when that special person came, I decided to cut off the second chance option. You can say that I have learned from past mistakes - never go back and never turn around because you will end up getting hurt even more - but was it a lesson worth learning at this point in time?

 

Just like you, Denver, I walk along the streets and I look at the homeless people. They have no roof, no family members that support them (otherwise they would not be on the street), they do not know what is going to happen tomorrow, but they still live. Some of them fight like crazy to survive. Then I look at myself - I have a roof over my head, an amazing job, I'm in school, I have an amazing and supportive group of friends and a great family. So, why do I feel empty inside? What is there to feel empty about?

 

Then I go back to this summer.... to the first time I saw his picture... to the first time I met him.... to our first kiss.... to our 3rd date.... to all of the times he made me laugh and made me feel alive again.... to the time when he cracked those walls around my heart built as a result of hurt from the past.... to the time when I was able to talk with him without wondering whether it is a good idea.... and I feel myself hurting. And it is not the same hurt I have experienced before because that hurt I got used to... that hurt would not be hurtful anymore.... It is a different type of hurt. The one where you know that you could have made things different but yet, for some dumb reason, chose the other path. The one where you feel like your heart is breaking into little pieces every time you think about the kiss, the smile, the look... The hurt where you try to re-build those walls, make them strong, yet they are failing now because you have felt loved and accepted for who you are for the first time. And you know they have loved you for who you are. And you question whether they maybe still love you. Whether they maybe still think about you. You wonder. You get wrapped in your thoughts. Time passes by quickly, yet you do not notice; you do not care. You hurt because you know they were special. They were different.

 

We all die eventually. Turn into dust and mix with ground. And you wish there was no time. You wish you would forget the past - have a mild amnesia.

 

I know how you feel. I feel how you feel.

Edited November 27, 2009 by leap83