Ashes

I have spent years running from the idea that there is anything healthy in an all-consuming love. The type of love you read about in every fiction book involving relationships – the type of love that exudes passion, desire, constant state of need/want of the other person. Never a moment when you don’t want to devour the one you love. Even in the moments of fights, you still want to touch and when you let something separate you – you literally spend weeks starving, sad, hurt and realizing that you can’t really run away from the one that is love.

 

I have chosen comfort, consistency and family. A family I never really felt I had on my own, one that chose me for me, not loving me out of necessity to help a child survive. Don’t get me wrong, I have great love from so many that stepped in to love me and ensure that my needs were met above and beyond. It’s strange though, my blood family may have seen one another often and kept this illusion that they all had one another’s best interest at heart, but the reality of it is – out of sight out of mind in my experience.

 
Seven years ago, I met a man that is without a doubt one of the most honorable men and best people out there, he cared for me in a gentle way - without expectation, agenda or a need to tell me that I needed to be anything other than me. He showed me and has continued to show me that I have to love myself, I can’t be ruled by the brokenness of the past, I can’t let the hurt or insecurities developed over time dictate how I take the words or care given to me now. It may seem cheesy but it’s in that care that we have woven together so much beauty. I would hope that similarly there have been many things that I have been able to provide for him as well. We are not married, and never will - that has often plagued me with confusion and frustration; but over the course of the last year I have realized, it’s not really necessary for us to wed in a traditional sense to prove to ourselves or others that we have a relationship that surpasses a traditional concept of matrimony. I would say we have what many people desire seeing in their own relationships: we have communication, freedom, foundation of care, family, financial stability, adventure and comfort. It’s quite beautiful. I love it, it’s not easy – it’s not the ‘norm’, but it’s us.

I do know what the all-consuming love feels like; I felt it. It’s there always desiring to consume me. She’s always ready to hand me her world, because I know that I am the world to her… I fight it most days, but she’s etched into every part of my being; music, shows, the leaves changing colors with the season, the minuscule weirdness of getting an appleTV, and so many places I go – I see her, hear her and I feel her every day. I am certain I have for 10 years – I tried so hard to not like girls then, but we knew. Over the years, we tried – seems we could never fully keep away. The brush of our arms touching on a drive, the lingering sensation with every hug, the days coming and going wanting nothing more than moments of conversation or the inability to not melt into one another’s bodies – it’s intoxicating.

But… I am incapable of letting myself take the risk for either of us that is always waiting on the other side of us choosing us. From the beginning, I have made excuses; I have ran, hurting her – honestly all while hurting myself; but I can’t phantom the reality of what choosing me would do to her. She never had to know what not having family was, it’s so tangled into who she is, she was given a family that she loves and I will never be one of them. If they did ever one day accept who we are, they would love me only for need of maintaining what they want, it would have nothing to do with genuine care, without wishing I / we were something different. I’ve never been capable of asking her to make that sacrifice, though I have on many occasions, I in the end always HURT us….

 
I used to hope that she would make the choice, pursue the freedom that I have been allowed to have with the family I have become so close to, but there’s still so much weirdness – and I struggle to trust her. I struggle to trust that at the end of the day, she would pick me; especially, when picking me results in heart ache so extreme of losing what she loves. I don’t feel I am worth that type of separation. Because even if we surrendered to the consumption, it would not be with ease. I am still working on me, the work to heal.

I snap, I break, I am not always successful at not letting the past hurt and impact how I respond and react.

 But when is it too late, when do you stop hoping that beauty from the ashes will be yours? There’s so many choices along the way that hinder the ability to see choosing passionate love is healthy. I think I sabotage so much of us along the way because I am scared, I am scared to let myself need and want her. I fear I will always be running, I am always one step away from crushing you / crushing myself. The consequences of my actions project a perception that I don’t love her the way she loves me, it’s not real – I to hate living without her and I believe that I love her as far as I am capable. She’s never suffering alone, but instead of not suffering by choosing each other, I continually make the choice for us to suffer alone.. Separately.

 When we are together, I fail. When we are apart – I am failing, she’s in every part of my day, but I can’t touch her – I am too often left with my tears. Too often left trying to sour her existence, sour us. It’s so easy to throw in the towel and use the hurt and the past as an excuse to push us away from one another. But at the end of the day, I have ran. I have ran from the adversity, the confusion, the potential loss. Run so far, how do we heal?

 

I have a plethora of imperfections, scars I am hiding and with the constant fear of brokenness. In allowing myself to be consumed by the fear, acceptance that consuming love is unhealthy, I have let brokenness consume me. The heart break here, is not a season of heart break – but rather a reality that the heart will remain broken as long as I am running, excusing distance, trying to destroy and reject.

"All I ask is, can beauty come out of ashes?"