Airplane Reflections: Impossible Love

On the flight back home from New York… back to reality, back to the grind. Andrew said I live an “exotic” life. I don’t think my life is THAT cool to warrant such a word… it’s more dynamic than a 9-5, that’s for sure. But compared to Broadway performers, my life is pretty chill. Why compare, you may ask?

Comparison is the thief of all joy. As is expectation. I engage in comparison and expectation games on the daily. (whoops. sorry. Can’t listen to any bachata songs right now… it’s too soon. Too triggering. Reminds me of Andrew and all that he can never be… I knew I’d start feeling sad, but I’m confident I won’t drink over this.) This is the sadness of a happy kind. It means I felt something, something was there, a real connection, dare I say LOVE, and it was beautiful. Not all beautiful things were meant to be in our lives forever. I hope this is not the end of my connection with him… but it hurts to think that I will never see him again,  even though he said he’d come visit SF. He can work from anywhere.

I have it bad. THIS right here is the punishment for falling for someone who lives across the country. I miss him. The absence is painful. But I didn’t start feeling this pain until I was apart from him. How I wish we could have met under different circumstances. He were here, or I were there. 

Can I self-manipulate myself out of this heartache? What kind of mind games can I play with myself to escape the pain of parting? Some tried and true strategies:

• Ghost and close my heart to him. Send him the poem but do it with the intention of saying goodbye. Poem, love you thank you, then not a trace left. 
• Bite the bullet and be honest with him and myself. Break it off, and do it gently but firmly. “I loved my time with you. I loved getting to know you. Thank you for making my trip to New York the highlight of my goddamn year. I will remember you always. But it’s not gonna work out long-term with us. Too many obstacles in our way, it’s not a battle I’m ready to fight. We’re in very different life phases, we’re both focused on ourselves and our careers/my healing, there’s not room for an “us” when the theme of this season is “me”, for both of us. Remember me by my words. Remember my love. I will never forget you.” 

See? “Heartbreaker” is indeed my middle name. I miss him, but for my sake and his, I need to cut this off before it goes any further. The longer this dreamscape drags on, the crueler the awakening back to reality. Cold water, ice cold water, let it shock you back to reality. Reality:

• He’s 39 and lives across the country.
• He’s clearly looking for a wife and someone to bear his children. He is about to become an FBI agent, he is ready to die. He wants kids before he dies. He wants me to take care of his kids. They will be so freakin’ beautiful. But I can’t raise kids alone…. I don’t want to be a housewife. I don’t want to take care of the kids while he fights criminals. I don’t want to live in a perpetual state of fear, gut-wrenching fear, that the love of my life could die every time he steps out the door to go to work. 
• I am 27. That’s a 12 year age gap. That’s pretty fucking significant, and my mom and dad both hate older guys, even though older guys seem to be my thing. My parents will never accept him, even though he is adamant he can change their mind. I love his naive confidence. I love his hopeless optimism. I love his whiteness and purity. I love his faith and conviction. He is confident, he is an empath, a connector, a healer. He is an angel. 
• He has served a purpose. He’s restored my faith in love and men and romance. He smashed through the ice and held my wounded heart in his hands, wrapped warm and healing fingers around it, and put it together piece by piece. (Update the next day— then ripped it apart into pieces again). I know my heart is whole again because it’s beating and feeling and hurting, which means I am no longer numb. 

I am playing the song “Helium” by Sia. That’s the song I associate with Max. Some interesting comparisons:

• Max was also an older dude. He was older than Andrew. 
• When I met him, I was close to my rock bottom. It was the beginning of the end. 
• I cried the day after I met Max. It was not tears of happiness… it was tears of pain. Knowing that to love a man like that would be to invite a world of pain into my heart. I knew, somehow, my intuition knew, it wasn’t right. But he was a drug. It’s like vaping or drinking with wet eyes because you know what you’re doing is bad and that it can kill you and that you’re doing it not because you want to but because you have a problem, an addiction, and you don’t have choice or control over what you’re doing, and you hate yourself so much that you willfully destroy your mind and body. I knew Max was bad news when I met him… maybe not on such a clear conscious level as I know in hindsight. But yeah,  I could sense it. It’s not a good sign to be sad after meeting someone you like. It’s not a good sign to be scared after meeting a potential candidate. Usually you should run the minute your intuition says, STAY AWAY. But because I was a sick person, I chose to stay with Max, and it nearly destroyed me. 
• Max lived in El Cerrito, which was over an hour drive away. I happily made that commute. 

And then there’s Andrew.

• He’s 39, 12 years older than me
• When I met him, I was rising from the ashes. I was newly sober, newly celibate. On vacation, doing something great for myself. I was happy and at peace. I also wasn’t manic, so it wasn’t mania that drove me to get with him. I was clear-headed and sober and head screwed on straight. 
• I didn’t throw myself at Andrew. Rather, he threw himself at me. I held him back at arm’s length until I could no longer resist. He pursued me, not the other way around. 
• Andrew lives across the country. He is a 5-hour plane ride away. Intrusive thought: should I uproot my life in Cali and live with him? Hah. THAT’S CRAZY TALK RIGHT THERE. But it crossed my mind, so I decided to put that thought down to rid it from my system. 
• Interesting how if you meet the right person, you will cross oceans to be with them. I thought Max was long-distance, until I met Andrew. I realize that when you really love a person, it doesn’t matter if you live in different countries; you’ll make it work. When there is a will, there is a way. But is there a will? That’s the million dollar question. 
• I didn’t cry after meeting him. I stayed chill. I was grateful to have met him but didn’t have any false expectations about the future. There’s something about the transience of a person or experience that brings you closer to the moment and makes you appreciate them more… like really be present, take it all in, cherish your time together, without future-projecting. That’s a beautiful thing. 
• Should I leave it at that? A beautiful week with beautiful memories and lessons and ending with a three-part poem, and relinquishing whatever outcome was meant to be to the universe? Wait. There’s a settling in my chest, a landing, a feeling of safety and security. That’s the right answer. It’s painful to think that this is the end of our romance.. but wait, that’s not what I just said. I said, “let the universe decide.” Surrender the outcome to God. Whatever happens will never take away from the beauty of my first week with him. Nothing can take that away from us. 

I’m trying to find a song to commemorate us by. I’m listening to the bachata song, “Mi Rival”. It started playing as I was writing this entry, and it made my heart sink a bit. It made me miss him. Maybe that’ll be our song.