Time ticks On.

Dear Diary,

 

Time passes by so slowly without him here with me. It is as though every passing moment is another eternity that keeps me forever within this heaviness and grief. I mentioned once that I'd prefer to be able to freeze time, but what I failed to mention is that that is only if I would be able to freeze the good moments and make them last forever. In the current state I'm in freezing time would be the very last thing I would want to do.

 

My Only Grace seems to be that all around me I know that time IS still passing, and it reminds me even on the days where I experience a sudden dissonance of detachment from everything else that contrary to everything I feel otherwise, I am, in fact, still alive, and that my heart is in fact still beating.

 

If the world cannot be the same for me ever again, Diary, if my sense of time and place and distance insists on remaining so wretchedly and utterly distorted, at least I can find comfort in the one constant, consistent, and unwarpable thing this life affords me. No matter the wave of feelings, or the happenings of circumstances, no matter how stuck in one moment my heart or spirit or even my entire being seems to be, I can always look to the steady clicking of the clock, or the swaying of the tree branches even in the slightest wind, or the aging of small children and find comfort in the fact that time ticks on without me. My world may be warped, but the world around me is still moving, and some days that is the Only thing that gets me through.

The day she realized she wasn't living for Love; Love was Living for Her.

Diary,

I am not even sure of what to write to you today. I feel as though my heart has been hollowed out and is void of all feeling altogether. I do not even feel as though a single memory of Love remains within me. It is a difficult experience to explain. Perhaps I feel as though I am a little child again, with not a care in the world and no concern or awareness of any feelings past or future other than the feelings I am experiencing in this present moment.

I have always thought that that is something that I want. But it seems to me today that it is emptier than I remember.

I realized in a blissful moment the other day that even my joy is darker without him. In some cruel-twist of irony, the moments of my purest happiness somehow become anchored down with my greatest heaviness in wishing he were here to experience them with me.

I think, though, Diary, that even the memory of missing him is something of a comfort to me. It brings awareness to the reality that he is now no longer with me, but it also brings awareness to the reality that at one time, even if only for a small moment, I could call him mine.

I think I have learned today within this vacuum of detachment that I've felt (-or haven't felt?), that even my pain is preferable to feeling nothing. I do not even think, Diary, that reverting back to the previous Joys I've known with all memories of him erased would any longer serve to satisfy my soul. I cannot trick me; He has become so much a part of me it is as though the very fabric of my soul is fraying and nothing but the fabric of his Love can keep it from unraveling further. I feel some days as though my entire body has unraveled and every thread of me is lying bare on the ground in a haphazard heap of separateness of what was once previously interwoven to completeness by the careful caress of his hands.

The world can crumble around you, Diary; The very fabric and the matter of everything else can go to waste and can disengrate into nothingness, but once your heart has felt a Love like This, nothing can ever be the same. My body is lying threadbare and haphazardly on the ground; my skeleton, my muscles, my veins, my everything- but somehow, even still, my heart yet remains in place and yet continues beating on its own. And sometimes, I could swear to you, Diary, with tears flowing as freely from my cheeks as they are now, that the only way my heart ever could have learned to beat like that was from him, -and only him.

The day her diary listened, because no one else could hear her.

Diary,

Life is so heavy since he left. I feel as though the mass of my heart has expanded but the muscle has stayed the exact same size. As such, it is as though my heart has fallen through me and has been weighed down to the very ground of the last moment where he said he loved me. Every step I take in any direction away from that moment takes all the courage and the strength that I can muster and only stretches my heart further. It is as though my heart is as heavy as a ton of steel, but is at the same time as thin and easy to stretch out as taffy- a taffy that does not have the ability nor the courtesy to ever break, but only to continue stretching infinitely thinner.

I feel everyday with every step I take as though I am plodding through the densest matter possible. It is as though all the atmosphere on earth has been gathered up together and is weighing down on me specifically. It is something akin, I suppose, to how it is in the movies when the rain clouds gather up and come over a single person, but this is different still because the atmosphere of it completely surrounds and nearly suffocates me. It takes all the strength I can draw out of me to stand against that weight that is doing everything it can to keep me down and to walk against that density that is doing everything it can to keep me stagnant.

-I do not know what I think of all of this. My heart and my emotions are so heavy and dense, and my thoughts at times seem to be equally so and at other times are instead so racy and all-over-the-place. I feel so much like I have never belonged somewhere as well as I have belonged anywhere as long as I have had him by my side.


...I just want my heart to turn to rubber and bounce back into me again.

I cannot cry. I wish I could. I do not mean that I am keeping myself from crying. I mean that I wish with all my heart that I could cry, but for some reason I cannot. If my heart will not become a part of me again, I wish, at least, that it would break. Somehow though, I find that even still, I remain stuck somewhere in between.

-What am I, Diary? Am I my heavy heart? Am I my racing thoughts? I am not even sure that I am any more broken now than I was before we met. ...In fact, I think I am more whole.


-And with that, a tear dropped on the page.

After Donovan's death.

Arianna comes across a love letter, never before discovered.


My Dearest Ari,

I'm so sorry. -If only there were some way that I could help you understand.

I do not wish to rationalize my behavior. I know that I was wrong. And I think somewhere I've known it all along. I have just refused to recognize it.

My flesh overruled my heart, and where I thought I would find fulfillment I was found wanting even more instead.

-How could I ever ask you to forgive me? When all was well with me I forsook you and knew not how much you had become a part of me. Now, all I thought I loved has been taken from me and I recognize that what remains, even after all these years, is You.

The emptiness was always there without You. In truth, I think it always will be. Now, more than I ever was before, I am ready to be whole. And now I know that it is You I need beside me in order to accomplish it. But now, I fear, for me it is too late.

It is not you, Ari, who is undeserving of me. It is I, that will ever-be taking two steps forward and falling another step back treading in the footsteps of your shadow.

Yours -If you will have me- And, I fear, Yours Even Still if you will not,

Donny

When one reads of love one often reads about the stars aligning and all of the circumstances which would have otherwise kept two soul-mates apart dissolving and warping into the perfect circumstance in which that Love can first be recognized and then be further cultivated and preserved. But writers of such fantasy are dreamers at best. They disregard reality and the circumstances of this life. They disregard the error that is inherent in each of us, that has grown within us over time and has often become to us as individuals deeply hidden behind the positive functionings of our character, and as such, has often become indistinguishable to ourselves as flaw.

Such stories do not take into account the effort that it requires on each lover's part to recognize, accept, embrace, and then commit to discovering and then unrooting those blocks of character which would otherwise keep them from each other. And then ever-commit to that same process over the course of the relationship, and then a life-time.

Donovan, true to his name was a Warrior. A Chieftan. He was skilled in all manner of worldly things and he conquered day-to-day living with diligence and ease. Arianna, true to her name, had beautiful, dark, flowing hair and olive skin, and she carried herself in all manner of conversation with a poise and a spiritual perception which was otherwise uncommon to find.

Every opportunity to really Love which Arianna and Donovan had experienced previously in their independent lives had been met with heartache and with opposition. Surely, the stars would align to unite two such people who even down to their very names were perfect for each other.

But such was not the case; Arianna and Donovan's love story would be no different. The stars did not align; in fact, they scattered and became covered up with a thunderous and ominous thickness deeper than ever before. Dark, coal black clouds thick as iron curtains covered the entire sky of opportunity from the very beginnings of their relationship until it seemed as though you'd never again see even as much as a glimmer of light piercing through that blackness.

The Gods, in light of the circumstances, others would say, were not in favor of their union. But Arianna and Donovan knew differently. They knew that amidst All opposition and weakness and folly that earth could muster up against them, the Only thing that could have yet continued to link them together was the very Power that had Once Itself overcome every pain and retribution which earth and hell could hurl at them.

Tears of deepest gratitude would stream down Arianna's face for the unsually determined and war-like strength which she was able to feel through times when the sky was blackest. And in like manner, the gentleness and tenderness which was so true of Arianna's character would become a part of Donovan in a way which he had never before been acquainted, and as such had never before anticipated, either.

The day he said he loved her

Diary,


Today we spent all day together! -All my life I have believed that love is just a fairytale and that real happiness was meant for everyone but me. But today something inside of me has changed. You should see the color of his eyes, Diary! They are deep and soulful and it feels like they are reaching out through mine and into the very muscle of my heart; I can feel his hands inside my chest cradling my heart within them.


If I were to have read that for myself from anyone else before today I’d have been the biggest cynic. But it is different once you have experienced it; My eyes are brim with tears just thinking about him.


There is a matter between us, Diary, that is invisible to the eye and can only be felt by the heart, and it so perfectly links our hearts and our compassions to one another. He smiled at me today and he told me that he loved me as he reached out for my hand and fell into my eyes and kissed me. I didn’t say anything back, but do you know, what, Diary? -I think I love him, too. :).

No human being would ever want to see another in this much pain and agony, let alone someone whom they had grown to love as deeply as Arianna had grown to love Donovan. It would be impossible for Arianna to relate to any one else who had not been in her same position what hurt more- being separated from him lying in the hospital bed in that much pain by the locked-down door and not being able to stop the screams or even to reach out and comfort him at all, or seeing through the glass window within his agony even still the Love and Deep Desire he had in his eyes for his own pain to be able to swallow up the sorrow he knew she was feeling through this all.

Donovan’s body had suffered tremendously, and would yet suffer any additional pain that could come to him, however difficult, if only it meant that the pain and heaviness in Arianna’s eyes and heart could be lifted and erased. And Arianna would just as soon have been in that hospital room under quarantine experiencing his pain for him. Thus, their highest joy in making love, their knowledge of their seperateness while at the same time being one, was in this situation the very source of their most intricate and seemingly insufferable pains.

You see, regardless of how completely you grow into “one” as a couple there yet remains that ever cruel twist of separateness that never can be combined. You yet remain two separate, distinct, individuals who experience your own reality- and as such you experience your own pains and sorrows which another could never take away from you. As much and as deeply as the one wished to be able to reach out to the other and swallow up his or her pains and take them on themselves instead, still their separateness remained, as solid and sure as the locked-down door and as clear as the glass window which now separated them. Arianna’s pain was Arianna’s pain and Donovan’s pain was Donovan’s pain, and it could never be another’s.

Through the heaviness of it all, however, the joys that they had shared together continued to shine through the darknesses of despair and warm and lift their hearts and spirits, and in those last moments right before he slipped away, lingering through the space between her heart and his, there was a Peace in that room that had penetrated through that locked-down wooden door and clear glass window; a Peace so solid and yet so fluid Only Love could have been the culprit.

A note from Arianna's Journal

At times I feel as though I am in two seperate places at once, and often times I am more present in the past moment of my mind than I am in the present moment of wherever my body physically happens to be.

All day today the comfort of his eyes has been as vivd and as real and as in front of me as though he were here right next to me looking into mine. -I store those moments up and I carry them with me in everything I do, they are always with me,- but days like today seem to overtake me with the reality of his presence.

The soft, deep, chocolate brown of his eyes wraps around me and enfolds me in a safety and security that is as real as, or perhaps even realer than, the past moment that my mind has presently taken me to of being nestled up against him in bed at night with his bare arms cradled gently around the frame of my naked body. My hand reaches up above me and traces the square frame of his face causing me to more fully turn into him, my bare body now on top of his, his arms now curled around me, hands resting softly against my back, and his face now perfectly square with mine within the frame of my two hands. Our eyes meet as my lips part and so perfectly come together with his, melting into putty and becoming as palpable in that moment as my soul is solid and secure. He thinks of me as I do of him, each wanting nothing more than to give All of ourselves to the other, and He and I become “We” from there.

The sacredness of such an act is something which others in the world may never quite understand. The solidarity of my soul and his coming together as one and through so doing knowing and solidfying that we would ever yet be together with each other as one, reaching and working and striving towards a common goal in all things- spiritually, temporally, physically, emotionally- offers me a comfort that cannot fully be described. It is a comfort so solid and secure that it reaches beyond the fleeting and the fickle and into the infinite and the eternal.

-His eyes are always with me, and on days like today when they are with me so completely I believe whole-heartedly that he is reaching out to me, drawing upon that power and connection and Oneness which we share with one another to grant me peace. “You can make it, Arianna,” his voice reverberates through my mind, “And I’m still here with you, every step of the way”.

The warmth of sunshine beams in through the bedroom window as Arianna awakes and prepares to face the day ahead of her. But the welcoming warmth of the sunbeams is in direct contrast to the coarse coldness which she will have to soldier through in facing yet another day. She wishes she could just curl up and go back to sleep and have the peace that only it affords her.

It has been 10 years and still the pain remains. They say it goes away with time, but she thinks it has only gotten worse. You never get used to having someone who was once a part of you taken away. You only get better at putting on a poker-face and pretending and parading to the world that despite your loss, you can be just as though you've never lost anything at all.

The pain is always there, and it is the contradiction of the pain which the world around her demands that is difficult for her. The more days she makes it through successfully pretending, the more the reality of the pain is manifest in a night like last night.

She tosses and turns and fights against the warmth of the sun as she argues with herself in her mind, trying to convince herself that maybe today will be the day in which she finds something that even so much as resembles a portion of the joy which she once had. This argument works sporadically, but over time she has come to believe that maybe even it is nothing more than a fantastical wish, and on most days the logic and the evidence of this side of the argument seems to outweigh any other.

The act of getting herself up and out of bed from day-to-day has therefore become nothing more than an act of pure self-discipline, coupled with the hope that even if she will not receive of that same joy herself, perhaps she may be able to bring within that day some small semblance of it into the lives of others. -And perhaps somewhere deep, deep down in some forgotten or closed off chamber of her heart there yet remains some small seed of hope just waiting to sprout up that despite all the evidence and logic that proves otherwise, Ultimately, Love will conquer All.

She lay in bed flat on her back staring up at the ceiling as her tears fell freely down her cheeks and thoughts of everything that used to be went reeling through her mind. She wished now and then that she had the ability to freeze time in such a way that a single moment, or rather, a string of moments could live on forever. But she had come to know for herself that such a wish was exactly what it professed to be and would never be anything more than that. She was acquainted with the harshness of reality; Life gives and then it takes away, and sometimes what it takes away lives on within our hearts forever.

There is the happiness of the memories, the fondness of the joy, and the peace and comfort which comes from knowing a Love as real as this was something with which she was once acquainted, but there is also the pain that creeps up on her on nights like tonight to remind her just when she thinks she is finally okay, that some... thing.. some... piece of the very core of her heart yet remains missing, and that perhaps it always will.

This is a pain so plaguingly personal that even the tears rolling down her cheeks only communicate in some small portion the hurt that still remains. It is a loneliness so solitary that even though she wishes to with all her heart, she does not know how to share it with another. She reaches over to her night stand, cups her hand around her small, palm-sized digital alarm clock to check the time, curls up from her back onto her side, tears flowing even more freely than they were before, knees slighlty bent, head and shoulders slightly tucked in towards her body, and wonders to herself if her heart will ever heal. She winces in pain, curls her knees and head in closer to her body, takes a deep breath, wipes her tears away, and exhausted with emotion, finally finds sleep.