Broken
I am broken. I’ve been this way for many years now. At my best guess two years and a bit. That may no seem like a long time, but to someone stuck in a self-inflicted cycle of broken… it’s a long time. It all started with a girl and an online dating site. It was… pure chance and dumb luck that brought her and myself together. To this day it amazes me how well I remember our first “contact”.
Wow – totally cool. A guy who is willing to write to me before seeing my picture!
I love the concept of geloscopy – predicting someone’s future based on their laughter. There are so many different types of laughs, the nervous laughter, the uninhibited laughter, the slightly evil laugh, the extremely evil laugh – they say so much about a person. I’ve never studied it, I don’t know where I would go. But I do pay attention to what makes people laugh and the way that they laugh, I think it says so much about a person. I’m extremely attracted to people who laugh a lot.
The entire idea of geloscopy not only amazed me, but showed me a new aspect of self and others I had never seen before. While I’m sure she didn’t invent this mysterious field of study, it was the start of my interest in a girl I would never meet.
I could go on a long story about how things progressed. I kept all our written communications with the intent of making a book with them. I didn’t record our phone/video conversations, but perhaps there are some things only I should know. I will say this thou, if I have every “fallen” into love. Head over heels for girl, this was the girl I did it for. I literally thought of her all the time. I imagined her closeness, believed I felt it too. I gave a level of trust I’ve never granted to anyone before. I… laid myself down before her as I am; and, she accepted me. If I had loved, I had love her and she had loved me.
Back to the story of sorts. Things were great, we were set to meet in only a month when things when strange. Last I talked to her we had planned on talking again the next evening. I waited the whole evening for her, but she never called… never came online. I figured, “I’m just some online guy and really life takes priority”. Really, I could understand something coming up and not being able to get online. I didn’t sleep that night… I was restless.
The next day I did what I often avoid doing, but do well when I do it. Worry. At the time I happened to remember her full name. Having only used voice over ip to talk, I had no need for her actual phone number. Now I was motivated to find that information. I knew she lived next to her brother, so searching for her last name and cross referencing addresses should of helped me find her number. As it turned out, it was unlisted.
I worried some more. I now wished I knew more details about her. What was the name of the place she worked at? What part of the city did she live in. Anything to help me find and contact her. I thought maybe I had done something wrong… I started to blame myself for opening up, sharing, trusting… Where this despair lead me, broke me.
It’s amazing what a desperate man will do for a woman. I eventually tracked down where she worked and managed to talk to someone she worked with. The conversation I had was possible the worst conversation I have ever had…
Me: Hi, I’m looking for Veronica.
Her: … Yes, who is this?
Me: I’m a friend of her’s, James.
Her: Your that guy from Canada?
Me: Yes?!
Her: She talked about you all the time
Me: … Oky, what’s going on?
Her: I don’t know how to say this, Veronica passed away on Monday.
And so I was broke. I got a few more details about what happened. I was given a number to call about the funeral and such. I couldn’t bring myself to call it, much less contemplate at last seeing her… So I did what people pretend to do best. Forget and move on. Except I did it wrong, I blocked out and never got over it.
It seemed like the universe had set out to crush my spirits and stir my souls foundations. I tried what I’ve always done to resolve issues. I wrote poems, read books and cooked. My poems were horrible. So sad and depressing I burned them. The books I read attempted to guide me, but I refused to accept their guidance. The cooking was alright thou.
When things settled down, I came out of my shell so to speak. A new James was born. A James who was bitter and angry. A James to rationed trust like the most precious resource known to man. Emotionally greedy and selfish, especially in relationships. I pushed friends away; and grew more bitter in my isolation. I was broken.
It’s funny how things work out over time. I wanted to get so far away from people I cared about and trusted that I got the great idea to teach over sea’s. I thought that maybe the extreme end of isolation would cure me some how. Then I was baited with the job of my “dreams”, but turns out my dreams were really elsewhere. I came back to where it all started, where all the people I pushed away were. I thought I was done my wandering and ready to move on. I was still broken.
It isn’t easy to describe what is exactly broken about me. “I have trust issues” doesn’t really cover it. I have “commitment issues” doesn’t cover it either. “Broken Heart” could explain many things, but still… doesn’t do it justice. It would best be described as loosing a piece of myself. That piece had some trust, commitment, heart and probably a few other things to boot. It’s my hope/belief that those sorts of things… grow back over time. All we have to do is nurture ourself so it can.
It’s been slow going really. I think I’m close to trusting again. I’m still scared of commitment. My heart is nearly recovered, but will perhaps always bare a scar. Some people call this emotional baggage, but I call it experience. Some people get married and divorced to get emotional experience. I threw myself out there and got a bad hand deal to me. I think I’ve learned a lot, but I’m far from knowing everything there is to learn from it. Moving on…
My dating for the last 6 months has been troubling for the last 6 months. I’ve felt like I’ve been leaving a trail of soul relationships in my wake. I’ve been leading girl after girl on… it’s a horrible thing to do, but imagine it like I was on emotional auto pilot. I didn’t realize I was doing it until it was too late. It wasn’t until recently that I realize this was going on. I believe I’m in the process of “removing” the emotional autopilot.
So this may seem confusing to read. It’s honestly still confusing to me. The short of the long is this. I’ve been broken for years. I now know that I am broken. I know why I am broken for the most part. I know what to do to fix myself. I know that it will take time to fix. I will one day be unbroken.
