these summer nights

I think of you. I hold the dark glowing embered clove between my fingers, the evening summer wind caresses the nape of my neck and I think of you. I wonder where you are. I remember those perfect summer nights with fine wine and even better company. My body shudders with a deep sigh: confession of a lingering love. I don't think one ever "gets over" a love like that. We move on, we grow, we live. But you were a part of me, pieces of you are still stuck in me and I'm quite certain you get whiffs of me when beauty strikes your heart a certain way.

Do you remember those leather seats with the wind whipping through your car? You hated the wind, I loved it. You and I, fire and wind. We were a constant contradiction, but somehow for that brief season we complimented, we completed, we were.

I hope you are healing. I am healing. I am seeing the things in me that you reacted to, the pieces of me that hated you for being born a man, and me for being born a woman. I am seeing the season, the goose chase, the difficult tenderness that was so confusing, I am seeing it for what it was. Nothing more, nothing less.

You opened up the beauty inside of me, even if you never meant to, you did. I'm not sure how it all works, I just know that I don't understand. I don't understand how years later I have a clove and the smoke and summer wind pulls me into this tender place of reminiscences. This is how memory is suppose to be. I am very aware of all the things that were terribly dysfunctional about us. But I am choosing to remember you in those moments of overwhelming revelry, discovery of beauty. I am choosing to remember how I felt beautiful, ironically, because of you.

Do you remember that conversation, I think it was in May, before we graduated? We were sitting on that wood deck outside of the Annex and we realized that we were healing from the same disease this whole time. I still think that we are healing from the same disease, we just couldn't do it together anymore.

I hope that the poison from feeling abandoned and betrayed has not marred your memory. I hope that there are moments of reprieve in which you remember with clarity the pure enjoyment of life together with people who loved you, and whom you loved.

After all of this time, I've come back round to love. The grief has run it's course. I hope to see you again. I hope you let me past that mask you wear so well, so convincingly. I hope you forgive me, completely, permanently.

I hope you are enjoying these summer nights.

Bounderies

How the hell do you have them? For a person suffering with co-dependancy I do not know! How do you not leak yourself all over an unsuspecting person? How do you not allow a person leak all over you? Worst of all, how do you forgive and let go if someone through their and your brokenness end up hurting you?

These are my recent questions, as I wrestle with the idea of bounderies. Idea, because that is all it is to me at this point in my life. An idea that I am really wanting to become a reality.

I was talking to some friends last night about the wrestle I've been having for the last 10 years about confronting a woman in my life that did great hurt to me. A large part of the wrestle, I finally realized, was that I was anticipating her response to my confrontation and was feeling responsible for it. Whoa. Stop the presses. No wonder I've agonized over this for so long. I think that some how I can say just the right thing, just the right way so that she will be confronted and feel loved at the same time?? How is that my responsibilty? It's been ten years! Over a third of my life letting this person still have power over me because of saying the "right" thing. I'm not going to say the right thing. It will never be exactly perfect in its presentation! But what I am responsible for is me. Is my response, is my own letting go of my expectation of how she is going to react. Of forgiving and really meaning it, really letting go of my hurt. Of course I would love it if she saw all of the things she did to me as the horrific acts of mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse that they were, and owned up to them, not only in my life but in the lives of other people I love. Realisically, I know that she probably won't. But I don't have to worry about that side of the letter. (did I mention that all this agony is over a letter??) I am here on this side. Although I have an uncanny gift to hear how a person is hearing me, it's not my place to hold myself and them in a prison of unforgiveness. It's time. It's time I let my Father take care of me on that end. I don't know how it's going to work out, but:

I am going to write the damn letter. I am going to close this damn door that's been gapping open for far too long. She doesn't scare me the way she used to. I don't dream about yelling at her and telling her that she can't treat me "this" way anymore. She's withered up into a sick and broken lady who happens to need love and forgiveness as much as I do.

Forgiveness. Who am I to withhold what has been given so freely to me? This is my humility.