Drip Dry My Keyboard....

You know, sometimes reality really sucks.
That's stating the obvious now, isn't it?

Tonight I am trying to pick up my disaster of a house. It's not pretty. I thought I was going to get SO much done this weekend. Heh. It MIGHT have something to do with the 13.5 hours that I spent reading the vampire books. But reading those books and feeling such strong emotions just reminds me how everyday life can be a total drag. And it reminds me of how much it can also be so very dramatic.

In books and movies, the characters often talk about the hole that's left behind when someone you love leaves you. And that is something that I have felt before. I think that's something that we have almost all felt before. Everyone responds to that feeling differently. I tend to shut down. I don't eat. I don't do much of anything. I go all zombie. One foot in front of the other. When I went through times like that in my life, I remember literally trying to "sleep it off" because that's the only time that I didn't hurt. Now granted, there are such things as nightmares, but I have always been more the type to have dreams of the reality that I wish I was having. Dreams of feeling whole again, and happy.

I remember that feeling, like you might just die. Where it physically hurts. When everywhere you turn, you are reminded of the person that you are missing. I don't know what is worse, losing someone that you love, or having someone that you love die. I have been lucky enough to not have very many people close to me die. I can't even fathom it. What's worse? Knowing that someone that you care about is out there leading their life and they don't want you anymore, or knowing that you can never see them again and they DID want you? I can't even imagine.

A friend of mine recently made a comment about new love. She got a wistful look in her eyes and mentioned how sweet the feeling of new love is. I remember that feeling too. After 10 years with my husband, It's hard to fathom that feeling of new love. We are so in tuned with each other that we know what the other is thinking. We know what will happen next. There is nothing that can compare to that familiarity. When the other person knows what you are thinking and feeling. Knows what music you want to hear, and what food you want for dinner. That person that knows so much about you that you start to feel like that's the way life will be forever.

What scares me more than the loss of a person who you loved once in your life, for a fleeting but powerful amount of time, is the potential of losing someone with whom you have gained so much more familiarity, or with whom you have a relationship so powerful that you take it for granted every single day, even when you don't mean to. We all have fears. I don't like flying. I don't like water. But you know, my biggest fear of all is losing someone so incredibly close to me that I can't imagine life without them.

The best friends that you met in kindergarden. Your parents. A sibling. The love of your life. Just the thought of that, the honest thought of "what if" I never see this person ever again.... it just about tears me in two. That handful of people that are your world. And I can feel the overwhelming gaping hole, rough around the edges, that makes you gasp for breath, that puts a huge weight on your chest, and starts the tears rolling silently down your face. I think of the "what if" and I envision it at different stages of my life. I think "what if" something happens and we never get to have kids together. I think "what if" my husband leaves me with small children. "what if" he leaves me when my kids are grown. "what if" I am 60, or 70, or 80. When would that "what if" ever be okay. When would I EVER be able to deal with it. When would it be harder, or easier, for me to lose someone that close to me? Never. The answer is never. It's never going to be okay. I am never going to be okay without him.

My husband always says I worry too much. He always says "I won't ever leave you." and I know that's a promise that a person can't make. I know that the world and life itself is out of his control... and is out of everyone's control. Some people turn to "faith" and turn to an afterlife to get them through thoughts like that. But I have to honestly tell you, it's not the afterlife that worries me. It's life right here on earth without that person. It's the thought of waking up alone in the morning. It's the thought of having no one to curl up on the couch with. No one to take for granted. It's not having to move his deoderant out from in front of your face wash every morning. It's not knocking his toothbrush out of the holder every time you reach for yours. It's the thought of no wedding ring on my finger. Of no one to kiss me goodbye in the morning. It terrifies me. It's almost crippling. Those are the kinds of things that I think about every day. The things that start to make me feel like something is crushing my chest and tearing my heart out. And I know that someday that will happen to me. Someday I will feel that feeling again, with more force than I have ever felt it before. And when I thought I would almost die the first time, with a relationship that in the end turned out to be insignificant and small... what would a real loss do to me? It makes me shudder.

It amazes me that not everyone thinks like this. And I think to myself, why do I have to be this incredibly sensitive person who thinks of things like this? Am I living my life to the fullest, or am I just being stressed and drug down by the weight of the fear of losing someone? Am I too passionate? Too dependent on the relationships that I have with others? Why am I not able to distance myself from these thoughts, from this anxiety that I feel everytime my husband gets on a plane, every time his car pulls out of the driveway? What is wrong with me? Why do I see the dark side? Why do I stress out so much about the end? Sometimes I think to myself, wow, in two years I will be 30. Assuming that I live to the ripe age of 90, my life is 1/3 over. That always makes Evan laugh. He says I am melodramatic. He says I should show some optimism.
When I was a junior in high school, my english teacher had a conversation with me once about romaticism. About going through life with "rose colored glasses." She told me that I am a helpless romantic. And she hinted towards how painful that can be in live. She said the worse part of life would be when those rose colored glasses came off. And when it happened, all I could think about was what she had said. And I started to think that if I just never put them back on, I would be able to protect myself. And I tried it for a while. But somewhere along the way I would put them back on, almost by accident, like my future was shining so bright I needed them- and then someone would always succeeed to knock them off. To screw me over. Basically I would get royally fucked over and the glasses would come off and I would think "how did you NOT see that coming?" and then I would vow NEVER again would that happen. Never again would I not see it coming. And after a few times of "learning my lesson" after trusting someone completely, I started to rely more on the "look out for number 1" theory- and I do alot of thinking "what if?"

So how does one go through life without thinking "what if?" And I don't mean regret. I don't look back and say "what if." More often I think back and say thank GOD that didn't happen. Thank GOD that prayer wasn't answered. What happened was for the better. It was destiny. Fate. Right? So how do you look FORWARD and instead of thinking "what if" just think that it's fate or destiny, and whatever happens, happens. That there is no way to prepare yourself for the worst. How can you force yourself to wear those rose colored glasses when you know they will just get shattered time and time again?