it's just another lonely day

unlike most little girls, i never, ever spent time imagining my big, beautiful wedding or what my prince would look like when he finally came riding his big, white horse into my life. it wasn't that i didn't want to dream of these things, it's that i could not picture anyone, ever, loving me. i thought i was too ugly, to unhappy, too different, too shy, too weird, too quiet for anyone to love. i thought the things i liked, no one else would ever like, the things i thought about, no one else would ever understand, the things that scared me, no one else would be able to relate to. but then i met you. i'd had relationships before, but you were my first true love. and while you are mistaken in thinking i pictured us with a white wedding and an equally white picket fence, it is true that suddenly, as soon as i saw you that first night, i could see myself walking down some future aisle, and the reason i could all of a sudden imagine this thing i'd never been able to picture before, is because i was walking toward you, standing before you, looking into your eyes, promising my forever to you.



i had a very strange, very vivid dream last night. i won't bore you with the details, but the feeling that lingered while i floated in that space between sleep and awake was a very strange one, one that i haven't felt since the day you moved out. the feeling was one of relief - relief that i, unlike the characters in my dream, hadn't lost someone who meant the world to me. it felt so good to be free of that burden, because that is the feeling i've been lugging around with me for the past two years, and if you don't know what it feels like, what regret feels like, it is possibly the worst feeling in the world, cause you know you fucked up something that was totally preventable, and you know there aren't any time machines to take you back so you can fix your mistakes, and you know you once held something so precious in your hands, only to let it slip away... regret is much worse than hatred, much worse than guilt, much worse than jealousy. regret means you had a chance, and you blew it, and there's no going back to retrieve what you once had. i was happy for that moment this morning, happy with the false sense my dream gave me of everything being ok in my life, of not having such regret, and then i woke up, in my bed, in my room, in my parents' house, in vancouver. you weren't beside me, i couldn't smell your hair, i couldn't hug you, i couldn't feel your skin, i couldn't hear your breath, you weren't even in a little bed on my floor, and i couldn't call out for my marmot, because you weren't there to whistle back. i was back in my life, awake, and regretful of having betrayed and lost and let go of you - my whole heart was lost when i let go of you.