Any Way the Wind Blows
Carson,
These are just more words that I hope your eyes will pass across one day, but the small voice in the back of my mind says you will likely never see. It doesn’t mean I don’t think them and I certainly feel them, so for you I’ll share. When I let myself fully feel, everything is just so heavy and ready to pull me under the surface. Feelings are not exactly emotions I handle well. The morning Jo was sent off to South Bend, she made that abundantly clear to me. I was ready to drop everything in that moment - leave everything and everyone without hesitation. There was no consideration for how she might feel or what she might want and ultimately it was happening to her. We’ve spent so many years together functioning as two sides of the same coin; separating was unfathomable. Fear has been one of the only feelings I have mastered and consequently understand most. Getting scared or bored would have me packing up my life, and ultimately Jo’s, to chase the horizon to whatever city the next train out would lead us. Fear and I are old friends, recurring lovers in this never ending charade I call living. Suppressing this constant alarm is almost as terrifying, as it is the most consistent force in my life. It takes hold and forms a vise, but this looming panic has also brought me safety. This has been the basis for the rules that have run my life.
Fear started to morph into an unknown entity several months ago. Imagine not recognizing the most prevalent character in your favorite book. It had similar characteristics, but became less recognizable to me. I couldn’t see if it was evolving into a new kind of storm and what it would hurl at me. Weathering this tempest wasn’t something I felt capable of doing.
Being on my own, I have had time to process and accept this new feeling. I wouldn’t call it hope, that’s too optimistic for me. It has been my experience that hope breeds eternal misery and it gathers company. I meant it when I said, “you opened me up again,” sweetheart. There’s now potential to settle (or land Jo would say, thus the name Bird- or at least one of the reasons), and make a place a home. I haven’t called anywhere “home” for almost as long as I can remember. Where I grew up was nothing more than an address, as it lacked the warmth and compassion I envision a home offering. Ultimately, having you in my life has created visions of coming home to someone and sharing my days and passing years with. This was never a fleeting thought in years past. Where one lived wasn’t a place to look forward to returning to.
Now, I have a place that is entirely my own. It is slowly transforming into a place that makes me smile when I walk through the door. I’ve grown to enjoy sitting quietly in my living room reading a book, or perching on the fire escape absorbing the sounds of the city, listening to neighbors chatting or the sounds emitting from a radio. The hardest part is when everything becomes quiet in the dead of night - I didn’t know the city could dip below a low rumble. I have never spent so many nights on my own to contend with the silence or only my spiraling thoughts. My mind can be an ominous place, a dark tapestry of despair, self-loathing, and twisting lies. These are the moments that I miss you the most. Laying with you under the stars, tucked away in the car, or my bed with my head resting on your warm skin on nights I could convince Jess to stay out late. Feeling you there, listening to the simple cadence of your heart in my ear with the gentle rise and fall of your chest - that’s when I felt most at home. Those are the moments invariably replaying in my mind so they never dissipate. I don’t know when, hell I don’t even know if I will ever be able to lie in your arms again. Everything makes me want to fight to have that chance.
God, Carse, what have you done to me? You once said, “you did this to me” and while we both know I was showing you another reality, you really have done this to me darling. Thoughts of you invade the most mundane moments of my days. I get tucked away in a daydream or memory and when I finally reemerge I haven’t a clue how much time has passed or why my surroundings don’t resemble Rockford. It’s like you are an illicit substance. I cannot get enough of you and must partake in its pleasure when no one else is around. I have never desired someone with the same intensity and consistency as I want you. I crave you in every possible and plausible way. Yet, I am scared to admit this to myself, let alone anyone else. I have told you to want things, but I’ve also said the things I desperately want never pan out. I want to want you - I dream of having you in every interpretation of the words you can imagine.
The ache from desire that you have created seems impossible. Of course I’ve fantasized and recalled previous flings to take care of myself, but now it’s only you. Your kisses and soft caresses, the gasps and sighs that escape our bodies almost like a betrayal. Am I to surrender to the idea that I will never have you again? Am I sentenced to only have these memories and suffer as they inevitably fade? Do you think about these moments as I do? Perhaps I will never know, for I have no knowledge as to where you are and what occupies your days. I don’t believe I’d know how to say these things to you in person. It all feels like a dream, while I’m used to nightmares. I keep waiting to wake up and discover none of this has happened and you are a heartbreaking delusion.
There must be a way to keep living and moving forward. It would be easier if we could talk just once before I see you again.
Forever thinking of you,
Greta