White Horses

I have a rule. I don’t date army boys. Only problem is, I can never keep myself from breaking it. I always fall for the man in uniform off risking his life. Despite the heartache, despite telling myself over and over again why it such a bad idea, knowing beyond a doubt that in the end it won’t be worth it, I still let myself fall a little every time one of those roving pair of tormented eyes turns my way. My resolve weakens and I make excuse after excuse.

Today, it hit me why I let it happen. It has a little to do with every last one of us humanoids turning into idiots in love, a little to do with little girl fantasies of princes on white horse, but mostly it has to do with my own need to for salvation. Every girl growing up in a middle class family with Disney movies being the normative background to an unbalanced and idealistic vision of romantic development has a similar, unattainable dream for her happily ever after. Even my pessimistic scrutiny of the idea of true love is overcome from time to time by that built in foundation where Cinderella lives happily ever after despite her tumultuous upbringing. If she can be happy, and all her little princess friends, and even some of my own friends and acquaintances, why can’t I?

And that my friends, is problem number one. It is one thing to be a die hard romantic, yet another to be a blabbering idiot living in a fairytale. Problem number two comes after we let the delusion take over, we convince ourselves we are in love, or even that we have finally found “the spark.” Its all bull shit. It feels good, great even, but if we don’t catch it fast enough, those bubbly feelings have the strength to tear down even the strongest among us. More on that later.

Problem number three, and this one is the kicker for me personally, is how broken we let ourselves get by the first two problems. The learning curve is a kicker and the more times you go around the block, the more cynical you become. However, at the same time something is happening under the surface, and this can bring about a few different outcomes. For me, I internalized, kept my game face on, but couldn’t let go of the little girl fantasies. I like to think of myself as a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man, and I don’t. I still let myself hope for one though. Despite myself, despite what I want in the end, I push the good ones away, finding one excuse after another why they aren’t worthy, or more why I’m not worthy for them. And it is true, most of them couldn’t handle me, but that is because I have put up a wall so thick and so high that they could never break it down. The heartache got to me and I’m scared to let someone else in, give yet another person the capacity to add on another layer. Instead, I sit in my tower and wait for the one who can break down the doors and rescue me from myself.

That brings us back around. Why do I fall for army boys? They symbolize exactly what I need, what a lot of us need. A hero. Only more often than not, they are as broken as I am if not more. No one can be someone else’s savior. What we can do is love. Love one another, love ourselves, love life, no matter how crappy it can be.

And on that cheesy note (sorry for the barf fest, I guess my introspection the last few weeks has led me to be a little more mushy than witty for the time being), I leave you with a fairly appropriate song by one of the best bands ever…

Laundry

October 23, 2011

Dear HB,

I was doing laundry tonight at my apartment, and realized the last time I had done it here and not at my parents’ house was with you. It seems an odd thing to bring you to mind, doing laundry, I didn’t even let you help, so I have to ask myself why it made me miss you so much. Laundry. I’m laughing at myself now, but I literally had to stop and take a deep breath. I wanted to call you, and just hear your voice, but its Sunday night and I’m pretty sure you are out of work, and even more sure that if you are, you are with her.

I know I can’t contact you directly, so I got the brilliant idea to write to you, and put it out into the universe, hoping that maybe, just maybe you’ll read this and realize you miss me too. I haven’t written letters I had no intentions of sending since Mr. Wrong and I broke up, so the fact I feel the need to do it again is worrisome. It makes me wonder why I ever needed to give you up. Not to say how I was feeling wasn’t valid, or that I was in love, or  even that the fact you were wasn’t terrifying, but all you were asking for (in theory) was time. Was my time really so precious I couldn’t give you a fraction of it?

Alas, this is where we are. You are with her and I am…dealing. I know the most likely scenario is that I will write you a dozen letters, you’ll never read them, and I will eventually move on, but I need to do it. I need to hope that you’ll stumble upon one of them and miss me enough to call, or that one day you will break up with her and I’ll have some sort of record to show you  I wasn’t lying when I told you I cared. I do miss you, and there’s not a day that goes by I don’t think of you. All I want is for you to be happy, however, and if that is a life without me, then so be it. I’ll come to accept that. For now, don’t judge me too much for almost driving up your street sometimes one my way to work, or for craning my neck to see if you are driving the Ford truck in front of me.

All the Best,

PR