January 2011 Archives

Be Careful of My Heart


You and your sweet smile
You and your tantalizing ways
You and your honey lips
You and all the sweet things that they say
You and your wild wild ways
One day you just up and walked away...

You left me hurting
But I can forgive you for that now
You taught me something
Something took me half my life to learn
When you give all yourself away
Just tell them to be careful of your heart

Be careful of my heart, heart
Be careful of this heart of mine
Be careful of my heart, heart
It just might break and send some splinters flying
Be careful of my heart, heart
Be careful

You you you
You you you
You you you
Took my love
Thought you took it all

You you you
You you you
You you you
Took my love
And now you're gone

But I'm not breaking down
And I'm not falling apart
I just lost a little faith
When you broke my heart
Given a chance
I might try it again
But I wouldn't risk it all this time

I'd save
A little love for myself
Enough for my heart to mend
A little love for myself
One day I just might love again
One day some sweet smile might turn my head
One day I just might give all myself away
One day
One day
One day

My Love comes home from his day and tells me he doesn't love me anymore. He struggles. He cries. I sit on the cold ground, heart-pounding-in-the-throat-unable-to-swallow-shocked. This is the sort of thing that only happens in the movies. The adventurous, vibrant, loving couple played by Sandra Bullock and Val Kilmer. They have the entire world at their finger tips, until it is crushed by someone or something. But this isn't a movie. This is real life. My life. I must be dreaming. I beg to be woken up.

 

In our case it is neither someone (in the extra-marital relationship sense) or something which broke the bond. Rather, it is as he puts it, "The hardest thing I ever had to do," to which I beg, "If it's so hard then don't do it!" A fist comes up and knocks my right jaw. I fall back. Then my left. My body swings the other way. And finally, one hits my stomach. I crumble on the floor. At least that is what I feel. Nothing but fists, pounding my body. "I don't love you anymore. And I don't have any hope for us." He looks away when he says these words. He is so young. So brave. So vulnerable. I want to help him. And stab him. I would rather he hit me. Cheat. I would rather anything than this.

 

I sit, stunned, shaking. Trying to touch him. He slouches, hands in his lap, looking only forwards. But he told me I'm the love of his life. "But you're the love of my life!" I scream. He manages to make eye contact but I wish he hadn't. His eyes are more vacant than those of a stranger's. Ice-cold. Lifeless. He's creating this in his head. He doesn't really mean it. He's tired. He's shut down. He's shivering. I go get him a glass of water and a sweatshirt. We do things like that for one another, people in loving relationships. He did stuff like that for me every day, until today.

 

I thought he'd be different. No, I still do! Different than every man in his family. Leavers. I thought we'd be different. I thought he was braver than them. But you are a coward. He's too lazy to work on this together. You have no idea what a real relationship requires. I should have known. I move into the Anger stage of grief and loss. What an asshole.

 

I leave in the morning, tears on his ear and neck. Begging him to listen to his heart and not his head. "You are the colour in my life," I say as I leave. I am a writer, after all, "And without you, my life is only black and white." To be fair, I mean it at the time. The corniness. We do that together, us fun lovers. We are cheesy together. "I'm on a train to Paris." A text message comes in while I am at work only a few hours later. There's nothing fun about that.

 

The man I love is part of me. He makes up part of how I identify with the world. We, us. I am half of this. It is half of me. To lose these things both at once is indescribable. To have it ripped from under me. Out of my control. I lose Him and Us. I am not just cut in half. I am cubed and put into a pot of boiling water for soup. This can't be real. This isn't happening. Denial, again.

 

I fight some more. Leaving messages, emails, notes and texts. Smothering him, suffocating him with my love and what he means to me. We are meant to be together! I try to find him to give him my strength and faith. I try to find the man I love and who loves me. He is somewhere behind those blank eyes. Protecting himself. The eyes look past me as the mouth tells me, "You can stay in the house as long as you need to, until you find somewhere else to go." These eyes - that I find comfort and strength in - are just tired of the worry. Tired from the Unsaid Things. The Little Things are now Big. The comforting eyes are no longer.

 

Now what do I do? I begin to move past denial again. The red head of anger rushes towards me. But before it strikes, I find just enough space to cry. For us. For him. For losses. For his lost love. For my Love, lost. For anyone who's ever been abandoned.

 

----

 

Bargaining is the next phase of grief and loss. I am good at that. I am comfortable in this role. "Just come to Portugal with me next week like we'd planned." We've already checked in online. "Just let's think of June. We can just be in love and have fun until then, then you can decide." I'll be the perfect girlfriend, I promise.  "I'll do the dishes every day." "You can eat whatever you want." "I love your friends and want you to spend more time with them." I mean it all. I bargain for time, space, and love without any currency to exchange. I give up future wants and desires and winning the who-gets-the-remote-tonight battles in advance. I try to bargain everything that I have and more. My hands are held out, full. But they appear empty to him. I have nothing he wants. I am unlovable.

 

I meditate. My friends meditate. My family sends special notes saying "if it's meant to be he will come back to you. Give him time. Just hang in there." Change your mind, come back to me, feel the love I have for you. We all work to manifest his return. His mum is speechless. My world is crumbling. Hang in there. Hang in there. Hang in there.

 

----

 

I get a call two days later.  He's reconsidered. He's coming home!

He blew off steam, felt more in control, and is going to "Give it another chance."

I am elated. I am a thirty second shooting star and one hundred sunny days in a row. I get another chance, I get another chance. I get another chance! I do the Get Another Chance Dance. Then I stop. He's going to change his mind. How I know this, I don't know.

 

I fear it. The fear so cold is sends me into a restless, unconscious sleep. So deep it is not real. I call him. "Are you sure you aren't going to change your mind?" I use my little-girl-cute-voice to remind him I am lovable, but I come across desperate. I have already lost all respect for myself so I don't care. I am a thousand kilometers past the point of desperation. A day's drive past respect. Nearing a sign on the road which says Five Minutes To Annihilation.

"No, I promise. We're a team." He sounds happy. He sounds like him. I feel light again, and fall blissfully drugged by his sweet soulful voice, onto my bed.

 

----

 

The next morning I am restless. It could be the coffee. It could be from the itchy, foreign bed. It's mostly because he's not replied to my texts messages. It is 11am. I start to panic. He's changed his mind BACK! I know it. I run back to my hotel during the lunch break. My heart in my throat. The punches come again, a thousand fists at once. I call him. Five times. He doesn't answer. I know why. I don't have the strength for it, but I call again. One last try. He picks up. He was wrong. He can't do it. He tried but there is something holding him back. "It's your own fear, my love! Don't do this! We can work through it." He's given up the best thing that ever could have been. I should be mad. I should be resentful. I should lose all faith in him as a human being. But I feel nothing but love and compassion. He is confused. Sad. Young. Inexperienced. He is the man I love. Even if he does not love me.

 

-----

 

"I guess I have to come home. Maybe I'll become a police officer or something." I say to my sister that night, as we try to keep me from murdering myself with the plastic knife I find in my room. "Why am I such a loser? Why can't nobody love me?" Depression. The final stage. I scratch at my skin. L + S = love is now a red engraving on my leg. I feel fifteen. I feel more vulnerable that I have ever felt. I am alone. Unwanted.

 

----

 

Just as I begin to accept, I stop. I listen. A glimmer. A glint. I feel something. The universe. He will change his mind again. I know it, too. I know this voice. It is myself from the future. It is every wise woman from every galaxy. It is God. It speaks to me.

But when? I don't know if it will be too late. He tries booking me a flight home  - away from him - as soon as possible. I refuse it. Give it more time. Give me more time!

I try calling him at night. I want to hear his voice. His breath. Even just to sense him on the other end. I stalk. A broken heart unwilling to accept. Strength and faith wither, but remain. Destiny cannot be altered.

----

I am coming home. February 2nd.

If I could invent a place where Santa Clause lives, it would be Finland. As it turns out, Santa Clause's real ancestors are buried somewhere in Turkey (read it in a book called The Science of Christmas so it must be true). Nonetheless, his (the commercialized, fabricated Santa we all know and love from Coke ads) home is actually Finland. This might come as a shock to you, as it did to me. After all, does Santa not live at the North Pole? This reminds me of a further shock, that of when I saw my first reindeer last week. It was white, had no antlers, and the only thing moderately similar to Rudolf was they jump as high as the fence which contains them. To this visual, much like the Shamans in the Sami villages of Lapland who take magic mushrooms to see into the future, I too had a great vision that they could fly.

We arrived to -24C. A shock to any system, let alone our Southern-France-if-it's-below-zero-we-don't-leave-the-house systems. Furthermore, the sun rose around 10am, while the daily sunset was at 3:30pm. These short days had dramatically changed even in the two weeks we were there. What seemed just as crazy to me was that by January 6th the sun rose at 9:30 and set just after 4pm. Needless to say, there is a lot of cold and darkness there in the winter. This was expected; however, and one cannot be sad, angry, or upset about something they had already anticipated. In fact, I felt quite rejuvenated by the crisp air as well as relaxed by the dark days... for the first week, anyways. After that, I was ready to go home. This might have also had something to do with how the excitement of the 'new fun Canadian girlfriend' has certainly worn off. Now it's the 'girl who is so opinionated she doesn't even eat meat (gasp! In a country where they eat bear meat from a can), who is tiring to be around because we have to speak English.' And I certainly learned about how I will or won't try to behave one day when I am at home with my family with someone from abroad for the holidays. But the lantulatiko (mashed turnip with cream) and glug (hot, mulled wine) made up for it. I found the secret for putting on holiday pounds there.

Here we are Anne (Fillip's girlfriend), Fillip, Basti and Mikael. The fam. We had a nice dinner at Mikael's on one of my last night's, where he made us all vegetarian curry and red wine for dinner as our Christmas presents. Brilliant.

We got very little done on our list of To Do's, but three of them were ticked off by the end: Snowboarding, Cross Country Skiing, and Polar Bear Swimming.

The snowboarding was not as bad as I expected. Call me a snob, but nothing will ever be as good as the mountains and snow we ride in BC. Sebastian and Mikael had an idea of this, and prepared me for the worst. The 300 meter hill ended up actually exceeding my expectations. And I taught the two of them a new term: Pow Hound, which we then had to act out on every run. Cold weather has it's bonuses, in this case, powder. This picture describes the scene. You can see the top from the parking lot. It would be a twenty minute walk, tops (in board gear and snow) and yet there is a chair. And the lights are on. Why? It is almost 1pm, therefore, almost getting dark.

 

I wasn't too sore after snowboarding even though it had been 4 years since I had been. Can you believe that!?!?! So we braved cross country skiing the following week when Krippan returned from work. I'll save the details and just say I suck at x-country. Maybe even more than I suck at ping pong. And that's bad. The last time Bast had gone x-country was in the army. So I wasn't alone when Krippan lapped us on a 3km trail.

Thirdly, the polar bear swim was a team event. By that I mean, I was the photographer while Harri, Krippan and Basti all went swimming. I feel as though the photographer, much like the water boy, goes under valued in instances such as this. But know that I really would have loved to go into the hole created by a current machine blowing -2C water around if I hadn't been so desperately needed at my obviously essential task.

 

Aside from To-Do's we also had To-See's. My favorite (yes, I am getting the itch) was Steffi and Kaisa, who had a baby girl (Elsa) when we were there last summer, and Elsa is now practically a grown woman! (I guess, dad, that's how you suddenly get a 30 year old) Six months old is a great age. She is smiling, sitting up, turning over, chatting, and even growling.

All in all it was your typical Christmas: lots of snow, cold weather, uncomfortable family issues, depression, over eating, excess boozing, sleeping to hide, and growing closer by having survived it all together. Oh, family.