paths

In the last few days I have gone over the path I have taken the last five years. Over and over again I retrace my steps. If I knew then what I now know, I would have done things very differently. I, like most people, only wanted happiness and fulfillment. I tried to love to my fullest in the hope that it might be returned. Well, it didn't happen, and somehow, at the time I first knew it, I withstood the initial disappointment and just went along, continuing my path, feeling a bit mournful but not at all devastated. Why then am I revisiting all this now? It hits me hard. But I know that there is no point in second-guessing myself. I have learned the hard way, in the worst way possible, because I feel not only horrible regret but anger and tremendous sadness. It is like the slow glow of a fire that has been burning inside me, and is now growing more forceful. I should extinguish it. I hope I can.



And it does not really get any more perverse than this: no sooner had I finished writing what you have just read when the phone rings. I hesitate to answer, as the day has been long and tiring and stressful. But I see from the caller ID that it is R. who broke my heart so violently almost six years ago. So why not just face some more pain? I answer. He is happy. He has just moved into his new condo in ____________, a city where I would never live. But he hates the cold, loves warm weather. He is a tropical flower, I used to say. R. is a sweet guy, and after we parted, once I was able to talk to him--after a short period during which I would rather have had my tongue cut out than have to face him--I appreciated, and continue to appreciate, his friendship. But this evening talking to him seems like a continuation of the emotional torture I have felt since Saturday. More memories to plague me, memories of yet another time when I thought that I had found some happiness that might last. This evening I was good, though. While a few barbed statements escaped my mouth I think they missed him. I was generally amiable and interested to hear about his new place. He is a gentle and kind person, a wonderful doctor to his patients. I wish him the very best. I know I could have been happy with him, because seeing him once made my heart soar.