Learning to love

Traveling with your ghost...

I remember those first moments, on that bench below our work, where I saw his soul piercing through those radiating green eyes, as he spoke of you. I could see the pain, as it changed the color from green to a dull gray when he said your name and choked back the admission that he could not make his love for you go away. I watched him intently for years, as I saw him walk through the disappointment over how you had fought for one another and inadvertently turned the sword on each other. Wounds he could not look beyond, kept him resolutely denying him self the one thing he wanted the most; you.
Naively, secretly, I found myself trying to fit into the shape of the gaping hole you had left in his heart. We drowned out our own individual pain and questions of life’s losses together, drink after drink, one escape at a time. At the end of each night, drunk, trying to fabricate that feeling of love, I would watch as his soul floated farther away from his face and his mind searched to find yours, in the bed. He held my hand, telling himself he could begin again, shielding his heart with his mounting book of rules and yet he saw you everywhere we went. I stood by, loving him and you, as you were one in his existence. I waited for the day that a tiny piece of landscape would become vacant for me to occupy. His anger turned to pain, the pain shifted to acceptance and for three years, I was the closest anyone had come to his battleground, where he traveled with your ghost.
The seasons of change came in my own heart and the nights of relying on my own delusions ended. I knew that I had to leave his memory, grateful for the lessons on love and ready to let him and his ghost do what they could, minus me. I opened my eyes when I opened the landscape of my own heart to the possibility of letting go. There he was. Sitting there in that familiar place, outside another work place. I entered his house and immediately recognized the obvious evidence of the one that was no longer present, but very much alive, everywhere. In his eyes, I saw great love, a warm glow of peace and true soul connection that came pouring from his heart when he too, spoke of you. The geographic distance between you, over oceans and miles, had left him robbed of the one thing he truly believed in; the one. I saw him try to tie a knot in the ends of those heartstrings that stretched from here to India, where he left you standing, unable to sleep. Today, as he tries so desperately to fit me into the space you occupied without effort, I see him slip away too. The excitement of the new, the encouragement of being attractive to someone else, gets him through his days for a while. Then his heart becomes part of the equation that his mind has been trying to recalculate, without you. He wraps his arms around me, where there has been a brick wall of distance for days and he breathes in deep, searching for your scent, in mine. I stand there, so different from your shape and smell and I see you; probably more than even he does. You are larger than life to him; your image creeps into the bed and pulls him away, as if from a hot flame, as his eyes open to a face in the candlelight that is not yours. I watch as he too, floats high above our bodies, watching in disbelief as he tries to force those heartstrings to sever. I feel your presence in his restless sleep, as he pulls me close and instinctually pushes away the body that does not fit, just hours before he awakes speaking of his dreams you filled the night before.
This year I traveled through many cites, many sceneries, many exciting days and nights at their sides, but having spent more time with your ghost than with them. I know you, better than I know these two men, because you fill the hearts of the ones I walk with. I too, have learned to love you, as your memory is all they have left to offer. I travel with your ghosts, praying that these incredible guys find peace in your absence while wishing you, the ghost, peace too.

I will never be Angel, which means, “Messenger”. I will never be Amira, which means “Princess”. However, I am grateful to my core for their existence on the hearts of those I've met, fore it has allowed me to see what love truly looks like, through thier eyes. Their memory has re-ignited the hope of being given my own. Very ironically, I travel with the ghost of a messenger princess, which could not be all bad.

Creativity is the willingness to express emotion and the ability to explore it without perfection.