until then it is hell

Sometime in the beginning of February I wrote:

Life without love is empty. Meaningless. Hopeless... Ad even if I were rich and handsome and popular and famous, I would give it all up just for love. Just to hold a woman's hand and see her not repel. To look into her eyes with passion and desire and to see that passion and desire returned. To be vulnerable and shaking and to have her accept that. In the end, being vulnerable and being loved is what I truly want.

It's been over a month since what I have dubbed "the worst night of my life." It's been over a month--nearly a month and a half--since I moved away from her. We're still great friends, and I think about her often. Dylan asked me last night as we sat out on the front porch in the cool night, "Do you still love her?" I don't know if I ever "loved" her. "Love" is such a misused word. And to be honest, I don't really know how to define it. But, as long as I'm being honest, let me just say that I have never felt for someone so deeply, cared for someone so richly, and wanted to be with some so passionately, as I do with her. Maybe that's love. It's not infatuation. I've known her for many years, and we've fought and gotten mad at each other, and there are things about her I don't like just as there are things about me she doesn't like. But with all of her faults (which are no more faulty than mine), I still want her. I don't want her repackaged, updated, remodeled with all the "faults" eliminated. I want her, holistically her. I want all of her, the things I adore and the things that bother me to the core. I want her with no strings attached.

I dreamed about her last night. The most vivid dream I've had of her since I've known her. In this dream we were together and happy, and then the dream changed, and I was watching as I was replaced with the boy from that awful night, and she was in his arms and they were together and she was happier than she had been when I was with her and holding her. I woke up sweating and nearly cried. It was worse than those awful night-terrors that have been accosting me lately. I got up, walked around, drank a glass of milk, ate a cookie, tried to forget the dream. The dream did fade, but it was replaced by the memories of that night. Memories are supposed to fade, they say, but it seems that as time passes, the memories become more acute and detailed.

Maybe I do love her. But love is such a toxic thing. It's like oxygen: it's a poison but at the same time it sustains--breathes--life. All the world's pain is centered around the abuse, misuse, and loss of love. And all the world's greatest joys have at their center the fruition, realization, and embracing of love. I am not a fool, and I do not cling to any foolish hopes. At least not consciously. I know she'll never see me like her, no matter how much I change myself in order to be appealing. I know that she doesn't experience the chemistry with me that I experience with her. And I know that one day my love for her--if that is what it is--will grow to a platonic love. And I'll love someone else as I have loved her, and maybe that woman will love me as I have loved her. But until then it is Hell.