ghosts

I had the audacity to fall in love.

And on the day of what would have marked our seven months of dating, I went on a date...with somebody else. And I missed him.

I've gone on a couple dates since we broke up...as if dipping my toes into the ocean of relationships again, wondering if I'm ready to go swimming - hoping I can meet somebody who makes me forget him. But each time it's been the same: I miss him.

I asked a friend how long that lasts - the haunting. Really, it doesn't seem fair to my date - for me to be physically present and yet emotionally gone. My friend told me that I will keep missing him until I meet somebody who I like more than I miss him. I think those words are wise, and I think that they are true.
And I also think that I'm not ready to be done missing him yet.

There are days when I think that all I want is to spend the rest of my life with him, to grow old with him, to have some babies and raise our kids with him. I know he'll make a great dad. In my dreams I share my life with him. We would have to work hard - probably go to counseling - but I have such faith in us. We would work together, play together, and share our lives.

And my friends tell me this is a bad idea. And they are right.
I wasn't able to share my life with him (our him with me) when we were dating. There were fragments that intersected, and I think that we truly cared about one another, but in the end...our worlds were just too different. It's like we were slowly causing the other to suffocate. We didn't mean to. And we were happy when we were together, but that just wasn't enough.

So I'm here - caught in this painful tension where my heart bleeds each time I see the ghost of our relationship, but don't feel ready to move on either. The memory of him makes me cry, but so does the thought of forgetting what we had.