the last dance

I wrote this a few months after ending a long term relationship with someone I thought I was going to spend my life with. A year later and I am finally ready to publish said feelings then. Today (March 2024) is different, but rereading back, this one stung deep. There are moments in this post that are beautiful, and i’m grateful I took the time to express it. So here is to the last dance.

Pablo.

It sort of haunts me reaching for his embrace, looking to my side, and realizing there’s nothing but space beside me. The world was vibrant shared hand in hand with him. Music was felt deeper, dancing over Pepas became our bond, and sharing food became more than just substance. Every interaction we shared together was a way of saying “I like this, Have it with me. I want this with you.”

In the last six months after moving out, I reflect deeply on our time together. There is a big part of my heart that is incredibly sad. It’s a sadness I’m not familiar with. A sadness that creeps up when I think I have it tucked away. I’d be lying if I said I could envision a life so full without him.. A realization of just how much I loved him. I never imagined him being an “almost, …a what if, or even a what could have been.” Sure, heartbreak has been felt previously but this, this consumes me in ways I wasn’t prepared for. The risk of allowing myself to love him was knowing I’d allow myself to feel a tenderness I kept fighting against in the beginning of us.

And now to bruise soo deeply after.

I find you lingering on my mind when I drift away from conversation, or view… All those nights you’d carry me back to bed because I had to escape your snoring. I find myself sharing moments of our travels to strangers only to realize you’re not beside me to share the other half of the story. Bumpy roads and funky wines for days. Or the time we survived a scooter accident, or seeing a once in a life time sail surrounded by dolphins. Your handpicking at food and little dances you did with eyes closed, and your head swaying grew on me. The moments alone deep at night has felt louder than your snores.

I soften the sadness by replaying in my head the name “little,” or when you would stare at me, and smile softly with a magic in your eyes. I replay all the voicemails you used to leave me. Reread tender messages I never expected receiving… laughing to myself on the moments when you’d peek up after a monsterous sound from under the blanket. Or when you’d walk off and then stop mid step, with a hand waiting for me to grab on. Oh the way you used to call me precious…

It w a s n ’ t for the lack of love.

The casualty of letting someone you love go is the most difficult decision you will ever have to come to terms with. I never saw this coming. Brutally, I never saw myself falling in love with him. I hesitated for months, …years really. I remember firmly hesitating dating him because I wouldn’t allow my heart to soften for annnnyone. I spent ten years with my then fiancé prior, and then three years alone. In those three years, I would soften each encounter for him. I did the work, and spent the time alone to put all the broken pieces of myself back together. Building the life we had wasn’t overnight. It took a lot of trust on my end, and reason on his to believe that just maybe, maybe we’d make it. So if you’re wondering, I never saw us building a life so full that the withdrawal of experiencing anything after without him by my side ached in such depths. This hurt. It hurt deep. It hurt bad.

We were two lovers caught in the solar eclipse of life. If you don’t know, in order for a solar eclipse to occur, the moon has to pass directly in front of the sun to create an aura… Now, the sun is about 400 times larger than the moon, and also 400 times further away— so making the two appear to be the exact same size from earth’s point of view is well, one, a rarity, but two, a cosmic serendipity— only when the moon, sun, and earth align by pure timing, will a solar eclipse occur. This requires the moon and sun’s orbit to be in exact sync — the tidal waves have to gather to balance the tilt of the earth. And so on, and so on. The point is, luck, or serendipity, or timing… Everything aligned to make the dots connect.

Timing, fought for us. Time, and time again.

From the very moment he saw me across the street, intently, and secretly following into the same Market, buying a bottle of wine and a box of chocolate, to his introduction asking if I would share it with him— we were always at the hands of time. We’d lose connection, that night, and well, often.. yet only to find ourselves consistently drawing back to one another. Maybe it was the tides pulling us back towards the ocean, in the same manner in how our hotels just so happen to be next door to each other in Los Angeles when we were trying to avoid each other on our own solo getaway trip.

He was charismatic, magnificent, lovable, and gentle. Over time I softened my edges for him. I couldn’t stand his silly Jesus t-shirts and flip flops, and he probably thought I was way too dressy and spent way more time at franchised restaurants than neighborhood gems. We were complete opposite, that is initially. Every time he picked food with his hands, and my god, his pacing back and fourth, it annoyed the hell out of me. And his memory, he forgets everything! He’d blame it because he’s old, and i’d throw a smart one back.

It’s an irony that the quirks, and mannerisms of someone slowly become freckles to you. They become the most endearing part that grows on you. I find myself often drifting into my long term memory. The part where it replays him picking at food, but really he’s making a taco and probably over-filling it but giving it to me first. I’m replaying the times when he paces back and fourth on a business call but finishes and immediately shares the exciting news with me waiting for my perspective. The time when he was still courting me, ran into me at Forget Me Not and immediately said I’ll be right back with urgency, and I asked, “Wait! Where are you going!?” and he replies, “I’m in a T-shirt, and flip flops, it doesn’t look good. I’m going to change. Two seconds. Promise.” — In all reality, he was perfect in his most imperfect, hands deep in taco sauce, ecstatic about his funny T-shirt kind of perfect way. Maybe not the T-shirt so much, but I know, pick my battles. *eyeroll*

Love is funny. You spend so much time perfecting the idea of what it is or should be, and really it’s just that— It’s seeing someone in their most pure version, and falling so soft for them because they make your heart burst.

Over the months we sort of lost that.

And while I reflect on those tender exchanges, I’m also reminded of how distant you grew from sharing this beautiful space with me to being everywhere else but with me. To me, you lost yourself in the business of business, and mostly, to your own demons…., and to you, you couldn’t be yourself. I’d compromise, and create boundaries but it didn’t matter. It became a nightmare to love you. How reaching for your hand felt like a chore from you. I couldn’t dare compete with first, or second place… I would forever be last in your life. And while I know you’d beg to differ, you didn’t truly know how difficult it was to love you. I put aside my boundaries, and took wind of all your demons, and despite forgiving and being patient, you were far lost. How conversation and interest became few and none. I forgave for things I should have never let pass me. I tried so hard to salvage us. I tried to reason with every possible disconnect. Along the way your heart grew cold, and mine grew colder.

In truth, as I reflect back, you were right.. We were never going to make it.

I replay scenarios. Go through the stages of grieving. Reflect on the parts where I lost myself in loving you too much. I became obsessive over someone who was never mine. Deep down, we were both free spirits. Perhaps that’s just what we needed most. To be free. We weren’t perfect, but in the beginning, we tried.

But in the end of it all. The sadness is what resonates the loudest. There was no more fight left in me. There was no time left for us the stall the inevitable. I set myself free, and I let you free.

He said it so perfectly to me once, “We lived more in our relationship than some couples do in their lifetime” and it was the saddest of all lines. Because I would have held on for a lifetime.

You’re going to meet someone in your life that is going to challenge you in every possible way. You’re going to question over and over whether love is supposed to feel this complicated, or whether because of love, you’re willing to go through the darkest roads to save the relationship you’ve become so protective over. Dating him was single handedly the easiest thing I committed to, and yet it was the hardest decision I had to make every single day of our life together. As time fills between us, and distance grows—walking away was the best thing I could have ever did for us. And perhaps there will always be a deep wound, unhealed knowing we just couldn’t make it work. Yet, in letting you go, I found myself again. And you were set free, back to t-shirts and flip-flops, messy hands in food.

Here is to Pepas. Maybe the universe has it left for us to dance one last time.