hope even in the darkest of hours

I miss her. I miss the way we talked about everything and nothing. I miss the way she would scrunch her little nose as she squeezed me tight in those bear-hugs. I miss the way I would hold her hand in the truck as we drove through the streets of night-time Cincinnati. I miss the way we would look into each other’s eyes and just become lost. I miss the way everything was simple and perfect. My life was beautiful… But now that beauty has become a desolate wasteland, and I am no more than a crumpled sun-bleached skeleton abandoned in the shifting sands of time.

Any hope that we would end up together is dashed to pieces like a fishing trawler thrown against the rocks. Perhaps I am taking this too hard. Maybe. Maybe not. Truth be told, she was the first girl I ever really loved (my love for Julie was non-existent, a self-delusion, a flowery infatuation). And now that I have experienced love, and adored it, and now that it has been taken from me (or, rather, I have lost it, whether by my hand or by the hand of another), the pain is deep and searing. It doesn’t make any sense to me why God would make me such a burning hopeless romantic and then let me experience this pain over and over again. No sense whatsoever. But I am being made stronger (though that may be another way of saying, “I’m growing cynical.”). I thought there would be no one better than Julie, but this was torn to pieces with Courtney. And now I am convinced I will not find anyone better than Courtney… But I am, again, deluding myself.

I am not thinking logically. I am letting my heart do all the thinking; where does my brain fit in? I don’t give logic even the slightest foothold. Experience has taught me that life is full of suffering; yet it has also taught me that hope and love and laughter and beauty are found where we least expect them. Courtney came out of nowhere; I totally didn’t expect to date her. There will be another girl, perhaps a girl I know right now, whom I will end up dating, and that relationship may very well make my relationship with Courtney seem pale, dull, uninteresting. Tasteless. And I am deluding myself, too, by painting up Courtney as a Greek goddess: when we were together, there were things about our relationship that I hated, but I was too afraid to say anything. There were times when we were together when I wished it would be different. And now, I’m going to be able to be in a relationship where my mistakes will pave the way to better intimacy. Courtney isn’t perfect (neither am I, God knows that much!), and when I make her perfect in my mind, I am unable to move on. I may have left Courtney a long time ago, but I still cling to the caricature that carries her name.

There is hope, even in the darkest of hours. I cling to that hope amidst my pain, even though this is an excruciating effort and causes me much pain.