The Break-Up Letter I Never Wrote
"My love,
I don’t hate you. That might make it easier for us both, to splinter
apart, forever shattering each other into separate pieces of what once
was whole.
No, I still find you as wonderful as the day I fell in love with you. You are not other — I know this spiritually. But you are different — I know this viscerally.
You may not understand or accept when I say I’m not angry that we are
no longer on the same path. I’ve shown my fiery side, so my regret is
in confusing this result with that reaction.
Yes I know, love, there is a molten core in me that usually flows as
quietly and calmly as a lava field and you and I always agreed it was my
passion-filled heart that steamed and bubbled and kept our love alive.
It was as enticing to you as the heat was strong.
But, at times, it erupted and this is what you never seemed to
understand: it was only because that passion was sanctioned with the
harshest of penalties. It was ignored. You took my heart for granted.
You, in your day-to-day practical way, unconsciously tossed your
dirty laundry on my heart, smothering it. It would go for days, weeks,
unnoticed and smoldering, and rather than flowing freely as you yourself
once so lovingly appreciated, it finally erupted.
A fire demands reverence and attention.
You thought I had changed; I hated to hear that.
And now, my love, I say to you, you were right. You see, I simply
returned to me — the one you fell in love with and were drawn to like a
moth to the flame.
I embody the idea that it’s all an illusion and so I flex into
something new and different at times, vacillating perhaps, but always
looking with an empathetic eye to what is other than me.
How many parts of you have I seen and tried on as my own?
I regret that you didn't try on parts of me.
Remember how I tried to describe myself when we first met?
You were pleased with how
easy I made it for you to get to know me because, as you soon discovered
and also derived pleasure from, I am a bit enigmatic. Anyway, remember,
I told you: I am a Pisces woman born in the Year of the Pig.
Not because I necessarily believe the star signs make my life unfold,
or my personality is categorical, it’s just that when you Googled those
descriptions, it effectively, concisely, told you about mercurial me.
I knew you would love having a map, and admit it, you did.
And then I told you a bit of my life story; just enough to explain
the ugliness in me that I knew you would discover. It was my way of
marking a nice big X on your map Here is an obstacle!
Dad left. Mom died. Everything else is rather inconsequential, and
you comforted me, acknowledging — and don’t you dare deny it, my love —
you had fallen in love with the tragedy of it all.
You fancied yourself my hero.
Just for fun I related the remarkable nature of my name and how I
have come to love it like I love my long tresses and green eyes because
they suit me so well. I’m named for angels — mom said I looked like one
when I was born and remember how you said I was one?
And my middle name, I’m sure she had no idea is derived from
Dionysus. What a perfect accidental name for me, and a delicious
contradiction. You also loved this tiny detail, found it provocative,
even.
I was your devilish little angel.
Do you remember? You once marveled at my gentle giving nature in
love, at my desire to talk deep into the night about the meaning of
life, while softly stroking your tired body. You thought my thrift-shop
style and messy mane of hair was charming.
You were exhilarated by my preference to be outside, under the stars,
with dirt under my nails and sweat dried on my skin after a long day of
work. You found me to be authentic, a wildly sexy woman because of
these unconventional ways that I evoked your wonder.
So once we ended up on the couch, in front of the TV, staring
blindly at a box side by side, was it really that surprising that I grew
restless?
You stopped seeing me.
Or, did you just think I was cool with coasting since I wasn’t overly
demanding or clingy or controlling? The snapshot of love was safely
tucked away in the scrapbook; you had proven yourself capable of
catching this silvery, slippery little fish. Was that all you required?
My love, I am not a souvenir.
This is why I’m writing. I am and always have been a kaleidoscopic
dance of shifting color and rhythm. We both know that’s how I caught
your eye. I am ethereal. Yes, hard to understand at
times, ambiguous for sure, maybe overwhelming or even contradictory.
But I told you all this way back at the beginning. Rather sheepishly,
even, because I knew then what you now have realized: I am hard to
comprehend. And you, my love, loved me for it then.
Now, though, you gesticulate at me, the mess, as if I crept up on you, as If I made this happen!
My love, I say this: I am not a mess. I am merely a vision of what
you yourself claim to want so badly to attain. I am a reflection of the
world, and of you, and sometimes that makes me confusing.
Most people want to find the brightest sun or the most exquisite
shooting star because those breathtaking heavenly bodies definitively
illuminate them, as well.
I am awesome like the moon.
I have learned to embrace the ambiguity of me and I wish you had too.
But, you couldn’t figure me out or solve me or capture the essence of
waxing and waning me. With my intuition — that you once revered — I refused to accept that this mess was just mine.
So, you sat on the couch and waited. You waited for me to explode at
the silent neglect of our love, and then you pointed your finger at me,
pontificating, dripping with such self-loathing that you couldn’t even
accept your role in this tumultuous thing we called us.
So I’m sorry, my love. You did not honor me by reciprocating or even
communicating with any vulnerability or honesty. You simply sat in
silent indignation, glorified by your own clever justification. Thus I
swim away. As gravely wonderful as you are, I must go.
Perhaps you thought loving me would require work: it requires action of course, my
love, but not work, at least no more than waking and breathing is work.
Respect for the other that you keep cradled in your heart is never work.
It just is.
That is how I loved you."
~ Angela Bowen
~ Angela Bowen
