My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

I formulate infinity stored deep inside of me…

Jul 4

Another June has gone by…

Category: Life

So, I’ve been writing this particular blog for two Julys now. Last July was definitely different. I posted about this song, but I was in a very different place. I wrote…

So, today’s the Fourth of July, another June has gone by.  When they light up our town I just think what a waste of gunpowder and sky…

That is the beginning of the saddest, most grammatically correct song ever written about the Fourth of July. It’s one of my favorite Aimee Mann songs. Last year, Sara and I were broken up for the Fourth. We broke up before the holiday, but that song was actually playing when she said her good-byes. Things are much better this year. We’re separated again, but only by physical distance. It’s weird, I’m not sure how to word this right, maybe I can’t. Being apart like this is a painful experience, I miss her on some level all the time, but it’s not an empty pain. It’s a pain that promises something better. It’s almost like getting a tattoo. It’s a constant stinging pain, but when it finally stops, you’re left with something beautiful. It’s a pain that’s a prelude to something that you know is worth anything. It’s not a loss, not an emptiness. It’s not Hell unending, the complete and total absence of God.

Life’s really not easy, but I think it’s always worth the trouble in the end. Happy Fourth…

Things have changed so much in two Julys. I didn’t end up with Sara, we broke up, again. Well, she broke up with me, again. After the second time, I really did feel empty. For a very long time, longer than I care to remember, it felt like endless emptiness, endless loneliness. They say that Hell is the absence of God, that is why Hell is supposed to be so bad. Supposedly, we are all a part of God, and without Him, it’s the worst pain, the worst emptiness, a feeling beyond our imagination. That’s how I felt every day without Sara, just lost and empty, for months and months. It really felt like it would never stop. I blamed myself, I thought of this song. I felt like I screwed everything up, again. I felt like I didn’t try hard enough, again. I felt like too much of a fuck up to be with anyone else.

It’s taken me almost a year to quit blaming myself, almost a year to start over and feel, not always better, but at least different. I know that I feel different about what happened, that it wasn’t my fault, not entirely. I did say to her, “what would it take?” I did everything I could, but it just didn’t work. I accept that now, because there are certain things a fellow just has to accept. I bet big on one person, and I lost big. It happens, you learn from it. I learned from it. I have the same goals, the same basic wants that I had last July. This July, I’m not as good as I want to be, but I’m not as bad as I was, not so empty. People go, new people come, and maybe the new people stay. The maybes are enough to wake up in the morning, not always, but usually. That’s as honest as I can be this 4th of July.

I have interesting things ahead, but they’re not ready to be written, not today.

2 comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Alex Carnegie July 5th, 2009 6:19 pm

    Two steps forward, one step back, repeat…

    In my experience that’s how it goes most of the time. We’re always so conscious of our current woes that we seldom remember how it was before, how far we’ve come since, and so on.

    If you don’t bet big you don’t stand to win big, and it’s always better to have played than not.

  2. Janet Lachapelle July 24th, 2009 12:23 am

    There’s something darkly, deeply, horrible about the “other side of love” and perhaps July as well. I’m not defining in terms of the whole love/hate thing but more of the loss of the “hearts and flowers” that gleeful intensity melting into some bizarre Pink pathetic “please please don’t leave me” that somehow remains lingering years after their gone. Some days to hear the overused “its better to have loved and lost “ diatribe is enough to make me want to rip someone’s head off . Some days its soothing. In my poetic soul I want to believe that love once lived and released into the universe is immortal. That maybe somewhere, in some small part of his soul he is touched and changed by what we experienced however pained and tortured in the end that “one side” of our love was deeply moving. For me having that experience changed forever who I am as a person. I guess that’s my maybe that pushes each dawn into a new day. There have been other loves since which came with their own set of sides and changes but none that ever took away that vacancy , that feeling of loss , and it is the endless regret that I have accepted as part of me and moved forward with it entwined into the fabric of my soul. As far as the deep darkness of July , well, its hard for me this year as a New Englander to think otherwise. Know any good ark builders?