An Evolution of Waiting–Guest Post by Indiana

Your green toothbrush is still in the same place I put it many weeks ago when I moved in here for the summer, right behind the tube of toothpaste. So every day I see it at least twice as I grab the tube to smear its strikingly blue goop onto my own toothbrush—blue like the goop. And some days I barely register its existence, as I sprint through my morning routine to make it to work at 8 am sharp-ish. But then there are nights like tonight, when it gives me pause…

You see, we both knew that this could be something. Or at least we both hoped it could. From our first meeting face to face on the most frigid night of the year, I wanted you more with every inch of my mind and body than I’d ever wanted anyone before. And I could tell you felt the same. We saw each other three times in the next five days.

And thinking of that, I ponder the age-old queries that couples ask themselves as they find their lives together crumbling around their feet, “How did we come so far from where we started? How did we get here?” How did we go from seeing each other three times a week to not speaking for three? How did we end up in this strange relationship limbo?

You asked for space. Not from the relationship. From me. From everyone. Your life was too painful, too difficult, too exhausting to deal with. And it really was. It really is. I may accuse you of many things, my dear, but exaggeration, in this regard, is not one of them. In six months you’d been asked to handle more than many struggle with in a decade. No, it wasn’t fair.

And the heavier the grief hung, the more you pulled away from me. No, that wasn’t fair, either.

So you left. The space you asked for wasn’t metaphorical but physical. You hopped on a train and twelve or so hours later you arrived in D.C. And to my knowledge you’ve been there ever since.

You needed to comfort your mother and clear your head. I got to wait. I’m still waiting. Wondering when your mother will return from East Africa. When you, in turn, will reappear in Boston… and when I… will decide what to do with this mess.

Because of technological malfunctions and such, I had no idea where you were for the entire first week that you were gone. Eventually everything worked itself out, but not before frantic words and sharp words were exchanged. Not before my emotions were beaten and bloodied.

It’s very difficult to sustain great worry and great anger for an entire week. It’s even harder to do so for three.

Which is why I’m not sure that I even feel much of anything in regards to this situation anymore. Occasionally there will be something that causes some contentment or melancholy. But mostly… I just… exist. Sometimes it almost seems as though I never had you… or knew you… That there was never any us. That these past three weeks have been my real life, and these memories that my mind dredges to the top are phantasms and fantasies. The line has blurred. And were it not for the fact that you hover, always, just below the surface of my thoughts and that given a moment alone, my mind turns always toward you, I might believe it.

I have no idea what I will say to you when you finally do call. Assuming that you do, of course. What concoction of words can even begin to touch the madness in my brain? Will you even acknowledge what this has been like for me? What it means for us? When you come back… will there still be an us?

The days melt away. The first week was torturous; the second, hopeful; the third, resigned; and now the fourth is beginning… and thus far it is clouded. Clouded by all of my uncertainties and insecurities. Clouded with rational thought and unreasonable emotion. And the more I think, the more convoluted it becomes.

Perhaps I fear that by the time your head has cleared, so too will my clouds… And I’m not sure that the forecast looks favorable. This sort of thing can hardly be sustained forever.

The movies lie in many ways, but in this one oh so cruelly. The girl doesn’t wait forever. Love alone is not enough. The ending is not always happy.

But just in case, your toothbrush remains…