It must be ten years today or tomorrow. I can’t remember if you enrolled later, which would mean not until next week.
I do remember it happened on a Monday. I felt sleepy, how tiresome was that first lecture of the week, even though the professor had a somewhat funny manner. A calm way of carrying himself. Nonetheless, tiresome.
The door opened that instant.
I won’t talk about how things went down; saying they didn’t and that later they did (only on my side), would suffice.
I will talk, however, about how I chose you… back then.
You weren’t kind, and safe to say I was terrified of you ninety-nine percent of the time. That you’d find me less than… worthy, I guess? Just like everyone else.
But you laughed when no one did.
You were very serious, always working on your laptop until one day I saw you’d rather watch a film over anything school related and… you lent a moment’s distraction when everything around me was pain. All the hurt I was used to hide… I could forget about it whenever you said yes and turned your screen towards my eyes, which turned out to be every time.
You used to arrive after me, or just before, and we never talked, even sitting next to each other, and I was sure you’d dread it if I opened the conversation so I refrained myself from it, until I made a habit of taking odd delight just being there by your side.
I was so used to this that my heart fluttered that day I saw you smiling while watching the crowd.
You were always on your phone, and I knew then I wouldn’t barge into your life, my deal has always been to never force myself where I’m not wanted; lest I become a burden.
I began treasuring every encounter right around that time. Every word, every gaze, trying to study or driving as carefully as I could (if you have to know, I never used to be careful with my car, always alone and with a bleeding heart… until you stepped inside), singing, the cd you sent me to try and every other song after that… how I got to convince you to drive instead of me that night. All of it was everything to me.
And there I found out we liked the same kind of música… and you lent me your book, the one I tried to return before even opening it because I knew we wouldn’t meet for our book/cookies trade when summer came.
How I hated being right.
How I hated not having at least called, years after.
I hate nothing, now.
But I chose you right then.
I prayed for you, and about you.
I still do.
I’ve always known you’d rather be with anyone else, and it pains me to say I understood, these kinds of understandings I get with more clarity than I’d like because they keep me always on the ground when that shouldn’t be my take on things, not now, not after everything God has spoken into my heart to make it alive. This is why I’ve always wanted to be the clueless kind, it sounds easier.
I would’ve followed you into the ends of the earth, boy. Loved you with everything I was and anything I had.
I told God that exact same thing and for years I had thought He had made me choose between you and Him, because of you, and because of me, and because of Him, but this week… I don’t know anything for sure.
Would you have chosen me? I’ve always harbored the question -I, and I alone- answer every time: No. Then I break my own heart.
Ah, it was me, I chose not to choose you in the end. With this option life has become bearable, I even surrendered any hope I could have had left that would irrevocably keep me tied to you. I’ve been free for months.
Your eyes were always sad. (I managed to find out they still are) And I wanted to care for you like I’d never wanted to care for anyone else in my life. I somehow got the idea of you having been in need of something deeper and I fancied myself up to the task, had you ever looked my way, how foolish I was. Foolish still, because, could I for once… see it all like almost heaven we could’ve had and not just two orphan hearts that couldn’t see beyond their pain?
Yes, I chose you. I prayed for days, weeks, months, and I was so afraid because you’d never choose me even when I could make lists and lists of signs, sings without end… I guess women are silly that way.
People even bluntly told me to go looking for someone else. As if hearts could bend like that. The me back then would have said sorry for having chosen you, but see, this is what I’m fighting now:
Not the idea of God having made me choose, of you having said no every time you could, if you ever did, either with word or deed, or if (and this is a long-shot) you never even knew,
but the idea of having been enough. I’m not like everyone else, I know, but this I’ve become… I do like, whenever I watch through the lens of the Light. He gave everything to form me and then turn me into someone He could actually cherish. If He does, why would I consider myself otherwise?
Because of the idea of you despising me.
The thing I’m trying to understand is that not even if you did, would the whole of it mean I’m despisable. Maybe the idea stings because to me you’ve always been quite the opposite.
Yes, I would’ve followed you into the ends of the earth.
I was following the idea of you into my soul’s deepest waters of despair, which I surrendered earlier this year for both our sakes; with you oblivious and alive and well I had to move on myself, and I somewhat did…
I did.
If I had hope, not any given by you, no encouragement on your side, I could believe He still has a way of you wanting to come home, counting on me being able to make one, or rather Him, with a hearth and a table prepared before the both of us ready to give us a full life. He would be our home, me by your side… Him, holding both of our hands.
If I had hope, I’d say yes to the question unasked. (He knows what I’m talking about, and He knows every truth I hide even behind my so called anger and wanting to not be here if any of it came to pass)
What would be a life of always waiting?
I won’t be, we have an understanding, Him and I, and even though His take on things has taken a riskier turn in the sense that I could lose every hope of anything if He doesn’t fix everything regarding this corner of my life… I still trust Him, I wouldn’t bet on anyone else with anything now.
I’ve never again felt the same way I did that Monday, no matter how I’ve tried… wanting to erase you sometimes as an act of defiance and retaliation, trying to guard whatever’s left of my heart. But maybe I’ve never again found that feeling because you truly weren’t it, or the feeling itself, or even my heart and He’s been transforming me from my deepest depths and when He’s done you’ll truly be a long lost memory. Could you bear the thought of it? Maybe knowing this would give me my answers,
I’m not making any kind of offer by the way. I wouldn’t bear it if I sold myself short, but I wouldn’t want to fall short, either, and besides, with these kinds of things one can never know, one can only jump.
I’d jump, if He brought you home, meaning this… He would be for us, with us. Yes, I could figure us walking together and laughing, but not one more second have I to spare regarding these kinds of desires.
I can live without you, by the way. I could endure the idea of my one being someone else I haven’t met yet, and my not-being-able-to-find the right kind of heartbeat could mean not that you overshadowed everyone else but that no one else’s heart has yet been unfolded before mine, and that’s a treasure well kept for a specific day, an hour, where everything will change in my life.
Could you bear it? Maybe you could search your own heart and spare whatever’s left of it if you’ve been doubting, wondering, or remembering, or even if this comes as a surprise.
If this was it, I’ll tell you now:
come home one day, will you? And don’t step all over my heart.
And if this wasn’t, for being able to work through it until it completely washes away I’m very grateful.
I’m thankful for that Monday, too, and every day after that; I chose you like this, and had to let go like so, and I’ve hoped, searched, against my own peace of mind… just yesterday I thought I saw you in the neighboring car, miles from our town.
Then I quieten my mind remembering it’s not like I truly and fully knew you, either. Even so, I had to write this at least once, not a sermon trying to get you to look at Him for your sake and His joy or any of the like, no:
My heart.
My true heart.
He knows it better than I do, after all.
We’re not bound, if you’re fearing these lines, rest on that; we’re not tied. He burned the glistening rope I had been hiding, tying me to the thought of you, to free my soul and heal my heart. And I’ll rest knowing He has someone ready for my hands, his the exact size to hold mine, and every bit of who I am.
That Monday meant hope and hurt, and ten years after I still remember.
I remember today,
tomorrow I’ll keep on living; this kind of love’s not shattering everything anymore.
Maybe I was shattered that Monday, I don’t know, I know nothing… maybe I had a lot to give and He knew I’d be laying it on ashes, who knows? I don’t ever let myself think so because we loved the same movies, and that meant something, it still does,
because I fancied myself as light for your life and lied in the sense that you somehow darkened mine, just to stay afloat, but no, you too brought light without even knowing what you were doing. Maybe that’s why I fell so hard, because I could see you… this light that made me feel safe and hopeful to the idea of there someday being sun at the reach of my hands. Now my soul’s been cleansed of the risk of my heart turning you into my only source of light, forever torn from anything good. This is something I’m grateful for too, because I got to meet my true Sun of Righteousness, and I get all of those in His arms, but still…
…come to think of it, you lent me light too. In a very, very, gloomy stage of my life. I could never repay you, which is why I still pray that you get to meet that, as I did, or better, fuller, more mercy and more love and more goodness and more of Him overall.
You too meant light somehow, dear heart, I see it now. And every dark piece of my heart turned out like that by the last days because I knew I couldn’t keep you, and I would’ve loved to, to truly have gotten to see you lighting all around, had there been a way.
I doesn’t make me dark now, because I know if I was able to see that, He does too. Or rather,
I got to see Him in you when you never even knew.
Maybe I fell for His light in your hands. Maybe I was crushed because of the darkness trying to stifle and drown it out.
There’s light there, then, and you came in and I woke up that Monday when the door opened, and I chose. Could you ever see it too?
Him?
I cannot follow you now, but if you ever wonder, just have Him talk.
-SFTS
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