Unorthodox love

Perception: I view my healing as my time. Time to be selfish time to be kind. I’ve been preparing for this time. He paused for a moment as he was preparing to leave and I asked him what’s coming up. He said, “ The last kiss we shared was beautiful.” I looked at him and waited for him to ask another question. Another moment passed and I spoke. “Would it be-“ I hesitated, “weird if we shared a goodbye kiss?” He took off his glasses, set them aside and shook his head. “No it wouldn’t be.” I set my glasses aside too and threw my arms around his neck, where my face settled in the crook. I cried some more. Heavy tears of letting go. Slowly, I raised my face to meet his. As our breaths grazed each other’s lips, I kissed him. This kiss was passionate but it was different. There was no lust here. It was brief, and when we pulled away we cried as I buried my head into his chest. He asked me how that was for me, and I said it was amazing. It did feel like the closing of a book. He said that it felt like pulling a plug and plugging it into something else. Before, our kisses were a journey. A ride that took us out of our bodies. This time, we went back into our own, no longer melting into each other. I admitted that I was waiting for him to ask, and since he didn’t, I asked. “If I didn’t, I would have been wondering. I’m in a place where I don’t want to wonder anymore.” He thanked me for asking. “Every time I would have seen you, I would have wondered as well.” “It was a beautiful way to close the chapter.” Before putting our glasses back on, we stared into each other’s eyes. His face seemed to inch closer to mine and I thought we were going to kiss again, but he kept his distance. “I’m going to miss this too,” he said. “I know it’s going to keep happening. When we sit across from each other during a fantastic meal whether it’s with other people or ourselves and we find something we like about the dish. Maybe that. This isn’t the end.” He nodded and we proceeded to put our glasses back on. He looked at me again and squeezed my hand as he asked, “Are you ready?” There was music playing from somewhere in my head, filling the silence with a crescendo. “Yes. Are you?” “I am.” We gathered our things and left together, hugged and said “I love you” one last time, and went our separate ways. It wouldn’t be the last I’d see him. I had always been ready for this moment. ——- Reality: Two nights before, I screamed “I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE” when my best friend asked me how I felt about the relationship I was in. I was dating Emerson for 10 months, but it felt like years. I felt suffocated and very far away from myself. I realized that the longer I was with him, the longer I committed the act of self betrayal. My friends pointed out that I began to lose sight of myself the moment we had started dating. I knew it too, but I was in denial. I was avoidant of the truth, and I was determined to keep it that way until I couldn’t. I was advised to take a couple of days to myself to clear my head, and to make sure that I was prepared to be strong enough to end the relationship. Two days later, he came to my house. I had put the diffuser on and calm music to keep me in a peaceful state. He sat on my bed across from me, and I read him a poem instead of talking about how I wanted to break up with him. That was the only way I knew how to express myself concisely, and thankfully he understood. Our relationship grew from being penpals from years and writing each other poems months before we started to date. I met him in middle school through his cousin, but we never really interacted until the end of high school and afterwards. At the time we started to write to each other, he lived in North Carolina where he attended college. I lived in California, 2000 miles away from our hometown. I had moved away to create a new life for myself. As exciting as it was, there were moments when I felt incredibly lonely. The only glimpses of home were phone calls from my friends and family and the letters that I had received from him. Both of us were in different relationships. The letters were a window to each other’s worlds. Vulnerability expressed in ink on paper. I saw him again when I came home for the holidays. I went with him and his cousins I grew up with to a tapas bar where we doting on the food. Our background in culinary arts was another bond that we had, and it showed during that dinner. Later during that year, I was going through the most painful breakup of my life at the time. I was engaged to someone I thought I loved and who was undeserving of what I had to offer, as he didn’t return any of what I gave. My ex fiancé and I lived with my family for a few months which was also a turning point in my life. The plan was to get married there and return to California as a married couple with a new life. He grew unhappy since he had an unproductive lifestyle, and I bought him a plane ticket to go back to California. He promised that he would wait for me for the next three months that I was with my family. He didn’t. I returned to California anyway, broken-hearted but determined to move forward. Before I left to live with my family, most of the friendships I had made ended because we were not on the same page of life anymore. Because of that, the feeling of loneliness grew deeper. I was surprised that the speed of healing from that heartbreak was faster than any that I had experienced. Maybe it was because I focused on myself in a way I never had before. I had to keep going. Emerson and one of his cousins planned a trip to visit me during the summer. I shared their space that they had rented and traveled with them to wherever it was they wanted to go when I wasn’t working. I truly felt at home with them and had the best time in California that I’ve had in a very long time. After they left, Emerson and I would talk on the phone everyday, transferring our connection of vulnerability from paper to long distance calls. The feeling of home never left, and months later I decided to move back home for good. Not only to be with him, but to come back to a familiar place with the people who loved me. I needed the support then more than ever, and it was not where I was. Leading up to the move, Emerson and I still send letters and poems. The windows to each other’s lives became bigger because there was space for each other. I hadn’t felt that kind of connection before, and I was excited to experience it in person. I tied up loose ends that I collected throughout the years of my residency. I packed my life into my car, picked up my cousin a handful of cities away, and we drove cross country and had the time of our lives. The evening of our arrival, we were so exhausted that we passed out after dinner. It was Christmas Eve, and Emerson and I decided to build the anticipation of seeing each other by not talking to each other that day and meeting up the next morning before participating in holiday obligations. At 5am the next morning, I got ready and crept downstairs while my family was sleeping. I listened to the playlist that we collaborated on. The anticipation was at an all time high. While I was walking towards the beach, I could make out a figure in the distance. There was nobody else around. It had to be him. I thought to myself, “I wonder if he could feel my presence.” He was standing at the shore, and I made my way next to him. We slowly turned towards each other, lifting our gaze and making eye contact for a few seconds before being engulfed in each other’s arms until the sun had risen.