Against the wind.

 I will heal, somehow, from knowing you.

***

Eleven years ago I met someone who changed me irrevocably.

Many people experience drastic events in their lives; natural disasters, deaths, relocations around the world, sudden fame or fortune. I simply met a boy from Berlin. We were friends for almost a year before he said the just right thing to make my soul begin to glow, and from that moment I was incapable of seeing past the stars in my eyes to reality; he became my whole world. I was addicted to him, to every word, every piece of attention. I needed him more than I'd ever needed any single thing and my entire wellbeing and the belief in the solidity of my own existence depended on his validation. When the lights grew dim, and his voice grew silent, I became a ghost, unable to do anything but pray and beg and plead in the deepest depths of my heart for this lifeline to return. It would, inevitably; and for months we engaged in a dysfunctional dance that ultimately suffocated me out of my reverie.

I gave him up on June 18, 2015. I never saw him or spoke to him again.

I went through withdrawal. I stopped eating. I drank. I slept my life away. I journaled. I said goodbye to the god who had never made his face to shine upon me. I read books on love addiction, codependency, unrequited love, shame. I listened to music - beautiful, aching music - that spoke exactly to my struggle and the love I was never allowed to claim. I thought about the end of all things. Started making plans for it. What is a life without love, anyway? And time went on, as it does. I saw a therapist. I started taking medication. I kept journaling, going deep into my mind and my past, digging and weeding and clearing. I learned about the self. I read Jung. I analyzed dreams. One day I realized that I was me, solidly me, no matter who was watching or what they thought. I was healing, growing. And time went on, as it does.

I met other guys I was into. Yet strangely, I saw them for who they were - not who I wanted or needed them to be. I remember smiling to myself, thinking, so this is what it feels like to be real. I never dated - I never wanted to. I wanted to be complete in myself. I did not ever want to force anything. I realized that that may mean I would always be alone - and that was okay. I would survive it. No matter what, I understood now, really understood and believed, that no matter how anyone else treated me, I have value, I have worth, and I matter to myself - and I can live with that.

And then I fucking met you.

***

I sit here, cozy at home in the evening time, trying to make meaning from meaninglessness.

There is no god. I know that now. My faith, my hope, just kind of slipped away like a leaf down a bending stream, back in 2016, and that was it. It was very quiet. And as proof that none of it was ever true, things have proceeded quite normally. Good and bad things occur. When I take action, things happen; when I don't, they don't. If I work hard, I see benefits. Chance is still chance.

What to do, then, with the nagging feeling that something is directing my life?

I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of spirituality, consciousness, life after death, all that. But in looking back over my life there has been one constant thread: the dearth of love.

Not just a few failed relationships, some bad dates. Not just cringeworthy moments back in high school when I was still finding my footing, or the crash-and-burn of college-era passion. No.

The absence of love.

The absence of being seen.

The absence of any imprint.

In my more vulnerable moments I admit to myself that I think I was born to love someone. But it's as if the universe, when it deigns to turn its gaze to me, the wretch, the nothing, answers back: No. Not you. Never you, child.

***

But you saw me. You...noticed me. Do you know how exceedingly rare that is?

In a life that has been so cold, so unfeeling, so removed from all odds of happiness, that I have to hypnotize myself into believing that I want it that way, that I am enough, that I can live another day without love, and another day without love, and another...do you even know what that does? It's a single drop of rain on a desert planet; and the secret no one cared to know was that one drop is all that was needed for a seed to bloom. One drop. Imagine what a storm would do.

When I think over the collection of moments I now have committed to memory, I feel that deep-seated urge to write a compelling narrative in what is quite likely the absence of one; I stitch together just those times when you were by my side or we somehow shared a smile or you laughed at my story, and they become the quilt I warm myself under as protection from the world; and I think of how I did that, too, with Eike. And I remember that it was never real with him.

In reality, what did we have? Couple of days. A few conversations. Purple flowers. Some cigs. And then you were gone - no goodbye, because that would have been too much - that would have been a story with a beginning, middle and end, and beholden as you are to the universe, you dutifully left me at the edge of a cliff, whispering to jump.

***

I'm not going to force you to do anything. I'm past that now. When I was your age, sure. I would have made an effort. I'm tired now. Beaten down. Running against the wind.

So I sit here and think instead about why you had such an effect on me. I was doing so well, don't you know that? Eleven years! I almost died. But instead I healed myself, and I loved myself, and I learned so much, and I wander this fucked up world with a disfigured heart that isn't capable of handling what it could years ago, it needs quiet, and gentleness, and time...but then that was you, weren't you...quiet, and gentle, and slow.

The world treats me like I'm made of steel. I'm not. I break, and I break, and I break, and I retreat and put myself back together so no one knows, no one suspects that my wildest dreams aren't of castles in the sky but of arms to fold me in, and handle me like I'm precious.

How I could rage. We shouldn't have met.

They say that when someone hits you hard like this, it's not about them - it's about your unmet needs, your low sense of self, and unhealed trauma. But I did the work! How much more can there possibly be to do? How much further into myself can I possibly need to go before finally, finally I'm worthy of someone?

And so what am I left with?

Distance, from you. No certainties, no marching orders beyond forgetting you and figuring out how to go back to who I was before I met you and before you showed me that somehow, I'm still capable of desire.

Exasperation, with the universe, and I'm just going to look crazy and say that I think the universe hates me. No one can be as terminally unlucky as I am without a little help. Call it karmic punishment, call it the end of the reincarnation cycle - I am doomed regardless of the language you choose.

Pain. It hurts. Deep in my gut, it hurts. It hurts to want, to need, without end, without resolution. To live a life without purpose. The conventional wisdom continues to be that in the absence of love you should fill your life with family and friends, exercise, books, travel, etc. etc. I'm sorry, can a book hold my hand? Is the elliptical going to look at me with eyes that sparkle like I've never seen? Will the mountaintop find beauty in my laugh, my voice, my wisdom though there be little to be found in my face?

Don't tell me there's a substitute for love. There's not. If there were, no one would get married and the human race would die off for lack of copulation. The only people who spew that nonsense are either already in relationships or attractive enough to know there's another one right around the corner.

I live my life in hard objectivity: putting one foot in front of the other again and again. Doing what needs doing. There aren't a lot of distractions and sometimes I do find that, alone with myself, there's only an abyss for a companion. And yes, lately, the end of things has crept up on me again. It's not an emotional thing anymore, just rational. I don't know a lot of people who would choose to live this life for another fifteen, twenty years. What will have been the point? What impact will I have made? Am I wrong to hold love in such high regard, and would you tell me so only to talk me down? What if I get over you only to meet another striking person who sees me and - spoiler alert - also disappears without a goodbye? Should I accept that as my life pattern? Or should I take matters into my own hands? As a wise man once said, there's no fate but what we make for ourselves.

There are no answers. That's the thing about religion - it gives you certainty. I left that behind and I'm better for it but left to yourself, you have the task of figuring out what it all means. And there are no answers, even, perhaps, when we die. And rationally, I think I'd rather put a stamp on it and say: "Never Loved, Never Really Here" then forge on hoping something changes.

***

Did you know you are beautiful? You are. You have flaws...but you will be loved. I know that much.

And I will heal, somehow, from knowing you.