Where Do I Go From Here

WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE

I never expected to feel this peculiar detachment from everything that happened. It's strange because it feels as though it was another lifetime ago, and like it wasn't me experiencing it all, but a completely different person instead. There's this distinction and distance, this wide open space that arches on for days, weeks, months, years. It's so big that I can't possibly see where it all ends. It's seemingly infinite. You could be anywhere right now. And I have no idea how to find you. Sometimes I wonder if I unconsciously instigated this detachment because it was the only way I could cope with everything. Like some force field of protection, that stops me finding the cord to plug myself back into everything all over again. Other times though, I wonder if I've just done what I previously imagined to be impossible, and simply moved on. I don't know. I can't quite tell. But what I do know, is that I'm not in the heart of the hurricane any more. Yet I never expected to feel this way. I always thought this would be alive and beating forever, that I would never be able to escape it all, but somehow I made it out, and it’s such a peculiar place to be standing. There’s a stirring deep, deep within my soul, but I can’t conjure it out on my own any more. It’s like it’s finally laid itself to rest, finally made its peace, and it no longer wants to be disturbed.

Sometimes this all feels like a really good story that I wrote in my mind. I’ve re-visited it so many times that it doesn't even feel real any more. Where do the lines between fantasy and reality cross, because now I can't honestly say that I know the difference. I know the core backbone of the story like the back of my hand. How could I ever forget? What I don't know, still, is if I drew the right conclusions, or was I simply imagining it all along? I never got the chance to back track and see just one more time, so I'm only left with memories, and I don’t even want to begin to count how many times I've revisited those. I don’t think there’s enough numbers in the universe. Sometimes I think back to the time when I watched you walk right out of my life, or I think back to everything that happened, and I can't help but wonder why I never did anything about it. Why did I watch the ship sinking and do nothing but stand on the side-lines, lamenting a loss I could have actively prevented? Why did I watch everything slowly go up in flames, instead of finding the water to put the flames out? Why did I throw myself into the path of the hurricane, and act surprised when it started to blow everything to pieces? I remember how we were always dancing around the subject, running in and out in a constant cycle, heads turned the other way yet secretly looking back over your shoulder to the one standing there. Sometimes I wish I had been braver. Sometimes I wish I had realised sooner. Sometimes I wish we'd captured that light and given it a concrete base, held it close with two hands, instead of letting it remain so free and elusive, until eventually it simply got blown away by the winds of change and time.

I always say this, and I still continue to say this, but you really did change my life. Divided it into two: a before and an after. Nothing has been the same since. You were like a dream. The sweetest dream come true. You were a figment of my imagination, the pinnacle of my hidden longing, a perfectly imperfect representation of my virtues, conjured into life. I've never met anyone like you. I'm still trying to find someone like you, but I worry that I never will because how you can you replace the irreplaceable? I often forget how it felt now. Like I said, the distance is really quite something. You're half a world away. Sometimes it feels like a million light years. I try to close my eyes and think, willing my memories to take me by the hand and guide me right back to those moments, those places, but it feels as though it's all clouded by an ashy, blurry, impenetrable fog. If my memories were a pair of shoes, I've worn them so many times that they're falling apart at the seams. I know it's time to put them to rest and look for something else, yet simultaneously those memories are a prized possession. A distant reminder from many years ago not to lose hope. To remember that it wasn't all in my mind. A flicker of pure magic that legend says you only experience once in a lifetime. Legends that I used to discount and roll my eyes at, but now find myself starting to believe all the same. You often feel like a dream I fabricated in the dead of night. You're an entity that used to be so vivid yet no longer presents in clarity, and I don't recall when I started to lose focus yet the proof of your existence no longer lies in those precious memories, but more so in the making of who I am. 

I guess you could say that my mind has somewhat faded your imprint on me. It's no longer booming asteroid showers, instead it's a fine rain that scarcely leaves a trace. I feel you most strongly now in not my mind, but somewhere else entirely. Maybe it's my heart, maybe it's my soul. I'm not quite sure, but something deep inside me still remembers what it was like to be around you. It's the benchmark to which I now subconsciously compare everyone I meet. The measurement that I use without even realising. And as of yet, no-one has made me remember that feeling, or reminded me of it. Some have come close, but most are almost-but-not-quite's, or they don't have any passing resemblance at all. At times I feel as though my mind, my heart, my soul, must surely be playing tricks on me. This feeling of recognition, this imprint, must be pure fabrication. Yet feeling like this, remembering like this, isn't something I decided, nor did I want. It just is. It's not a memory, it's a feeling, a change, a unique imprint drawn in permanent marker. Often, I wish I wasn't left with this new found knowledge about myself, this elusive long lost feeling I hope to feel again one day, the impact of another, this sense of which parts of me I want someone else to light up, just by them being them and us reacting together. Someone who fills in what I lack to make a whole, and vice versa. I wish I could settle for less, but things will never be like they were again. They can't be, and I know deep down that that's a good thing.

Even now, when the intensity has faded, and the feelings have mellowed and broadened in scope. I still remember, even though I really wish I wouldn't. It still flickers, it's still embedded in my being, it's still present. I doubt it could ever be truly lost. But for now, I know that the race has been run, the mountain has been climbed, the sea has been swum. There's no more to give. No more that can be done. Time and distance are as infinite as ever. The world suddenly seems like an awfully big place. There's no place to start and no place to end. A click of one's finger and an entity becomes a peculiar forceful feeling and a collection of cloudy memories and a whisper blown along by the wind. There's nowhere left to run, there's no past to which to turn to, there's no choice accept to open my eyes to the future and step into it with a heart full of optimism and promise. One day I hope to meet someone else who gives me that feeling of recognition once again. I hope to meet my match. I hope to meet someone with whom I can share my life, my happiness, and vice versa. I hope to meet someone who inspires me. I hope to be brave enough to stand up tall and proud and confident and not hold back. I hope that I take a chance and see what I find on the other side. I hope I remember what I learnt from you. But till that day comes, I've decided I no longer want to feel at a loss any more. Instead, I hope to feel as a free as a bird, as weightless as a floating feather, as content as the sun on a blue summers day, as bright as a star, as full of promise as the rain clearing the air so a new day can begin. Open my heart once again. And I'll carry on walking in this direction. I quite like where I'm going now. I'm happy. Really happy. And I don't know if this path will ever lead me to where you are and where you're going. Maybe it never will. But whatever happens, I implicitly trust that what will be, will be. In the mean time, I have a life to be living, dreams to make reality, and a future to be getting to.