Sex and the Single Soccer Mom

“There is so much hurt in this game of searching for a mate, of testing, trying. And you realize suddenly that you forgot it was a game, and turn away in tears.”   ~ Sylvia Plath

Is it morbid to open with a quote by Syliva Plath, on this gray and rainy day?

Yesterday morning, I lay and watched my lover sleeping. I held him, breathed in his scent and tried to imprint the sensation of his skin against mine upon my memory. We luxuriated in waking and loving, knowing it was the last time. When he rose from my bed and dressed, leaving me with kisses and a silence that carried all the words it was pointless to say, I didn’t cry. I haven’t wept since.

Today, I feel those tears pressing at the back of my eyes and rising up into my throat to choke me. I’ve made the right decision, the only decision that makes any sort of sense for my future. I don’t have regret at attempting the relationship again, nor do I regret the decision to have one final evening together before we took our separate paths. However, the incomprehensible waste of potential fills me with grief and a sense of frustration and impotence. It’s hard to find someone who matchs you in so many ways, much less someone who makes you think and feel and that you also want to see naked every day. To walk away from something some people never even find, well, my mind and my heart are having a hard time understanding. I know why I’m walking away; what I can’t understand is why he’s fine with watching me do it.

I can’t save this relationship alone, so I’m choosing to save myself.

I’m not broken enough to follow along on the path of darkness Plath ultimately did, but I can certainly read her poetry and musings and feel a kinship; which is part of the reason I’m walking away now. My soul hovers too closely to shadow to openly invite it into my life. I’m not a pessimist, but my emotions are intense.  Loving and staying with a man who can’t decide if he loves me enough to stay is inviting emotional disaster. The pride I have is that leaving is a mark of my own personal growth and increase in strength. I’m not willing to self-destruct for love anymore. There’s a verse from a song that resonates with me: “Love doesn’t hurt, so I know/I’m not falling in love/I’m just falling to pieces.” I’ve fallen to pieces and had to carefully glue myself back together; I have zero desire to ever be broken again. I’m not broken, just bruised enough that I want to lie curled around the ache for a few days (weeks?) and let myself heal.

This is the end of a love I’ll treasure for the rest of my life, despite the ache. Even if one day we should wind up back in each other’s lives, this relationship as it existed is over. A brand-new one would have to be created. I can’t begin to know if the possibility exists. Yet I know the door is now open for new possibilities, new loves…

I’m going to take a bit of time to catch my breath and let the bruises heal, then I’m going to embrace possibility.

This entry was posted on May 29, 2012 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Dating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.