The phone is ringing…..once…..twice…… I don’t know if he will pick up. Lately he has been not answering, I haven’t spoken with him in quite awhile, not since learning about him dating. I threw some very unkind and hurtful words his way. I suppose I would avoid my calls too.
I feel different lately. My world looks so different to me recently. I am finding joy in the here and now, I am able to sit on the floor with my daughters and read a book, laugh with them, play with them. For a long time after Josh died I couldn’t stop long enough to recognize their needs. I have been so lost inside my own pain, my own sadness, I failed to recognize their need for comfort, their need for me.
We are finding our routine again, we are finding our way. I have been managing a children’s clothing store, the girls are beginning to thrive again in school, Lili started kindergarten we bought a home. Our world is moving on and away from the painful past. I am lonely most of the time, heartsick for love, for touch, for a partner, but I am never alone anymore. I have fallen headlong into the arms of my redeemer and allowing him to guide my life, trusting in his timing for my future.
“Hello?”……… ,WHAM……,a crushing pressure collapses my chest, his voice, on the other side of the line, a tether between us that threatens to undo my resolve. I close my eyes and see his beautiful face, I pull a deep breath, “Hi you”, I say, “How have you been’? I am fighting for strength, fighting the urge to cry, fighting my own desire to be angry with him for not wanting me. Who do I choose right now? Myself? Or Him? “I’m good, just got in from a surf”. He replies slowly. I can see him behind my closed eyes, perched on a stool, one foot on the ground, the other pulled up to the first rung of the stool, bending his knee giving his towel a place to rest. No shirt, just surf shorts, he has grown his hair out, its shaggy and starting to fall into his eyes. He is so brown, his teeth so white, and he is happy. BAH! I Shake my head….. “focus Ivy” I say to myself. Its so good to hear his voice I don’t want to say what I know I need to, so I procrastinate. I tell him about the seizure and about the doctors appointment and the waiting for the results. I tell him about Gracie having to have a tooth pulled and how terrifying for me that is. I don’t tell him that I miss him, I don’t tell him that I want him, need him, am broken without him. I’m going to choose him first, love him first. I have found my resolve at last. “Ash”, I say with trepidation, “I wanted to apologize for the way that I have been treating you these last few months”, I hurry on, cutting him off not wanting to hear his response. “I have thought about you every minute of every day lately and….,” he cuts in, “Ivy, I can’t…..”, I cut him off again, desperately trying to ignore the rejection I hear in his voice, desperately trying to not react with cruelty to mask my hurt. I press on, “I know that you are dating someone….”, again he begins to speak, “Ivy, its not….”, “please”, I say, “let me finish….. my greatest desire is for you to be happy, even if that means not being with me.” Do I really believe what I am saying? If I do, why then, do my eyeballs feel like they are going to explode, why is there a literal ache in my chest as if my heart is tearing in two ,why can I not swallow around the painful rock in my throat. “I miss you, and I love you, and I want you to be happy”, I spit this out as fast as I can so that I don’t choke on my words. Ash is trying to talk, but my ears are ringing, I know that when I hang up the phone I will not pick it up to call him again, the tether will snap, the connection lost, the silence will be deafening. I cannot listen to his reasoning, I cannot hear the softness in his voice or the fact that he is thanking me for the call and admitting that he still loves me. I cannot feel or my flesh will win, my pride will rise up and fight, my words will start to cut and punch. I don’t want to hurt him anymore. I don’t want to say mean things just to get a reaction, to wound him because I am wounded. I love him, I love him enough to stop hurting him, I love him enough to protect him from myself. This is my truth, I do love him enough to say goodbye.