Right, and wrong timing. in The First Life

I’m shut in a white hotel room in a state all the way down south. One I’ve never seen before.
I’m thinking of John, still. I always refrained from using his name, but I know he never wanders in these parts. I have nothing to fear.
I stumbled across these words he said to me three years ago around this time

“Nothing is going to get in the way of our lives right now”....

I forgot he ever said it. We were at a party, neither single, we stayed up late until it was just us.
He kissed me.
It wasn’t even a moment we built up to. It was just a moment that happened, like it was supposed to, like it never stopped. We were drunk. He fell asleep holding me. I woke up with a pit in my stomach, I knew it wasn’t going anywhere. A year before it might have, but not then.
His face was nuzzled into the back of my neck. He never let go through the night. I crawled out in the morning.

We faced it later.
He said ” Maybe when we’re 40 and divorced.”
What does that even mean?
And he left it with the line above.
Nothing will get in the way. So final.

Over the years we never stopped checking in. I’d dream of him from time to time..He’d reach out, we’d talk. Sometimes for days, sometimes hours.

Through everything, I always went back to him. Wondered why my heart never raced the way it did. Why I never felt free.
Every day for years I still thought of him. I still do. Every damn day..every day. I have felt guilty for it…I’d cower in a corner wondering why I couldn’t escape him.
When he stopped reaching out, I felt a void.

A couple drunk weekends ago I was thinking of him. It always takes a lot to choose not to reach out. I go mad contemplating…why him? Why was I always thinking of him?
There are a million things I don’t miss about him.
I don’t miss his lack of commitment. I don’t miss how he’d leave me hanging for hours and cancel plans and how he’d not invite me to things I felt were important. I dont miss how he’d come and go.
I miss how he made me feel 80% of the time. I miss how we’d laugh..how we’d have fun doing anything, anywhere. How we were each other’s best friend and we had the best times together. How he’d call me ‘beautiful ‘ or say ‘hey gorgeous ‘. When he’d wink at me from across the room. The conversations that bit hard and went on for hours. Feeling free, and loved, and beautiful.
I wonder if he’s found that in her. I’ve wondered that all along. I found someone that gave me exactly what he couldn’t, but I had none of the things I needed. I just found someone that filled the gaps John could never bridge.

Sometimes I’d toss in bed, next to my then partner, feeling awful because John’s face came to mind. Or I’d catch myself drifting off into sleep with our memory, a smile drifting across my face and vanishing as the void crept back in. I’d take a deep breath and push it back into the corner. Feeling guilty. I’d count the things my partner gave me that John could not. He was the opposite, so it was easy.

So here I am..in a hotel room down south. Everything still reminds me of him. Not my most recent ex. John. Always John. I can still, 3 years and one partner later, see him in everything.

So I reach out. I want him to miss me. I want this to be that time. I’ve never been able to believe that it is over. I don’t know that I ever will.
I look for any signs that might say he feels me still. That he dreams of me. That he finds me there.
I always just said he was the right person at the wrong time.

Last updated November 06, 2017