Journal Entry #4: Wake up. Guess who's knocking?

The morning after night three:

I’m breathing out with relief that I have actually matched the morning’s calmness. It’s still out, and so am I. That horrible swollen feeling and that heavy void clotting in my chest is gone, although my heart still clearly is unlevel and uneasy. Its grown cold out today; it reminds me that I haven’t seen Florida get to a low like this in I can’t remember how long. I woke up early in the morning hours to the fall pounding at my door, and my cell phone’s alarm blaring and filling the room between my four walls, to drive to the airport to say goodbye to one of my favorite people in this entire world: Maria Estevao. She’s moving back to Portugal and then to France for college. As happy and proud as I am for her, it still felt like hell all in its own sense. I know that many of us have shared this same pain, just in different levels. But we all know that you just can’t be selfish in these situations. I am happy for her, and in fact I am ecstatic for her, and it’s not like she intentionally and blatantly left us in a selfish or narcissistic way; her hearts too big to do that. She left to better her life and I would give any limb on my body for her to have that opportunity. I am more than proud to be able to call her my friend and she gave no empty goodbyes, or for better words, a lack of one as she walked down her terminal, away from me and the rest of us. She had hugged every one of us as she cried and explained how she loves each of us; I had handfuls of words, but I didn’t want to say anything to upset her any more. She brought a wonderful part of me to life that died a long time ago, and I have no idea how to thank her for that. So I just swallowed my heart, hugged her twice as hard, and told her that I loved her too.

This season always fills my head with reminders of this time last year and reminders of you. It always brings about some sort of an empty feeling. In all honesty, it makes me feel lonely. The fall and the winter especially remind me of everything about you. I remember vividly meeting you this time last year. I remember the hotel that I was working at and installing equipment at and every detail about it; the way that it smelled and how it somehow reeked of an endless amount of hard work and labor; the terrible, miss-matched colors that hotels like to take, the long days, the people working there along side of my father and I and his company. I remember all of the days there and how you always told me that you wanted me there with you in the cold and cool weather. I remember the music festival that you went to and the entire time we were back and forth with our comments to each other. They held everything between our opinions and beliefs; our wantings and expectations and everything in between. For some reason I think that you believe that this has changed; that my mind and wantings have changed. They haven’t. It’s still the same and I still sit here and imagine these things more often than not. And honestly, to tell the truth, I don’t think that I’ve wanted them more.

I’m so tired of using the phrase “I just want to make this work.” It makes it seem like happiness between us is so hard, but it is not in the least. That’s one thing that is so special about us: how easy it is. You remember and I know that you do. It is not lost. It is not just a part of the past. It is simple, but I just think that our views on where we stand are off. I simply just want to ask you and find out which is the obvious and intelligent answer, but I don’t want to be too pushy at this moment. I feel like I’ve done that enough already, and the edge this time is far closer than ever before; I’ve told myself before that maybe it is true that I can’t tell when a right moment is, but I at least can tell when a wrong moment is.

But this is where I am torn. Everywhere that I turn I hear the phrase “if you want something, go get it,” or “fight for what you love.” From movies, to shows, to other people’s conversations. Maybe not word for word every time, but something damn near close to it with the same meaning. It’s funny how these things stand out so brightly when you find yourself mixed in with their situations and emotions. But it’s been several days now and I haven’t heard anything from you. I am just trying to give you the space and time that I’ve known you to always need, and it’s hard not to let you know that I want to fight for you. I want to show you how much that I care; it’s needed now, but it has to be done in specific ways. I want you to know and to understand it, but I can’t push you away; I can’t drive you away from me. But at the same time you can’t run so easily like I have known you to always do. I won’t ever fight so hard to the point where I disregard your other needs and it’s so hard to keep a level head between that. I’m fighting a constant battle in my own mind and heart because I want to say these things to you, but I don’t feel like it’s the right time. Maybe I’m wrong, but again, I know that I can at least recognize when the wrong time is, and this is one of them.

Honestly, I feel like I’ve really messed up this time around; there are other reasons for it. I feel like my choice of words in a recent argument were the entirely wrong ones, and really, I can admit that they were: I was too abrasive. For that I am sorry, and I’ve spilt this to you. But the distance that you have been keeping had to be brought into the light; no longer just ignored. And I simply stood up for myself and what I want and sometimes as a person you just have to do that. I just wish that you would have understood that. I only wanted you to come closer out of it, not further like this; and definitely not this distant. But I just want you to understand that I was so tired of missing you. I was so tired of having you so close, but yet you were still so far away. I was so tired of remembering how close that we were and how close we were to being to that point again, only to suddenly be forced by you to feel like I wasn’t worth the few minutes that it would have taken you to talk with me, despite what you said about your realizations. I was so tired of falling for you more and more every day only to feel like you were overcoming me, regardless of what you told me. How am I supposed to make sense out of you siding with two opposite extremes at different times?

What I do know is that when my confusion calms, I am able to see through your smokescreen. I know what your heart feels, and I know what your head is scared of; just like you know what my heart feels, and what my head is scared of. I know that I can see through your bluffs, but sometimes it seems that it’s hard for you to. You even tricked yourself into thinking that I didn’t love you, so you so easily could have done the same here.

You are one girl that I have met that has the strength to push someone behind and move on. I am happy that you have this strength. Everyone needs it and you definitely need this skill so that you can move past something that obviously didn’t work before. I’ve done it myself and those actions taken did turn out for the best. But this? Something like this? Something like us? You just don’t push something like this behind. You just don’t.