I don't know what it is or how it happens, but in those quiet moments when my mind and heart are in stillness, as I sort out my closet or water the plants and listen to the rain; in awe that my apartment is again fast becoming my little treehouse - he finds his way into my being. The subtle memories, it can be a song, something he said or something we laughed at. Oh and I say treehouse because every spring and summer as the trees and bushes fill out, I feel like I am living in a lush green forest. It's SO beautiful.
So yes - the Slovenian is back - back in my thoughts again - I sit here and shake my head :)
So let's get to the end of this chapter - to the last moments that we shared - albeit some years ago.
I had called him and made it very clear that I cared for him and wanted to see him again - I don't think I had held anything back - I am unable to share anything I said to him as it was the day of my works' summer party and I was absolutely out of my mind with alcohol. I booked the ticket the next day and was here by the weekend. We stayed for a week in a hostel in Downtown Vancouver, a building that now no longer exists, it is now just another high rise apartment block.
It was lovely to see his face again at the airport - he was pacing up and down - anxious I guess and when he saw me, I just wanted to run to him and wrap my arms around him, but in my composed and 'held back' way, I just walked up to him and we greeted each other awkwardly. He introduced me that very evening to some of his friends - all of them smoking hot salsa dancers, beautiful young women and men, university students who made me feel inadequate - no hold on a minute - I did that all by myself. I had put on a few pounds since my return from Australia and my self-esteem was at an all time low. It was strange being in his world - I was here with the sole intention of telling him that I loved him and that I wanted to marry him - how ludicrous in hindsight :)
He had reluctantly taken me to meet with his sister and stepmother one afternoon - they lived in the east end somewhere. We had sat there eating olives, cheeses and crispbread; and I had nervously sat laughing at 'Meet the Parents' - I was howling at the bit where he sets light to the house chasing after Jinxy the cat :) The Slovenian looked at me as if I was a loony tune. Even now I drive passed the bus stop that we had sat at waiting for the bus on the way back to the Downtown core - it's right outside a wedding dress shop - that's the only reason I remember.
The trip was horrid to be fair - we were both really awkward around each other - I actually was a complete loony tune around him in all honesty - somehow all the confidence, spark and allure that I had had in Australia had been swallowed up and consumed in the shame, embarrassment and guilt that I felt for the way that I had behaved with him. I was not yet able to let it go - or able to forgive myself. So I was a complete emotional mess and the muddle in my head was expressing itself in my actions - which made me skittish and nuts - I was paranoid and neurotic.
We had fought too - at one point this led to me stepping out of the window onto the roof of the gym just inches below and acting out - expecting him to come out after me - of course he didn't.
I went back home to the UK more dis-empowered than when I got there - I can't even find the words to emphasize how low I was in the days that followed. I was completely lost. But I kept up the contact with him. I think it fluxed between sending him words of love one day and sending him words of hate the next. Poor guy. Poor me!!!!
I think a year had passed and I found the courage to go back - back to Vancouver again to win him over - OMG!!!!! Glutton for punishment. I had booked a weeks' stay at a Holiday Inn - and had told him that I was going there to secure a job - a lie of course. I was going there to finally tell him how I felt about him - I had never ever told him how I really felt - perhaps if I did I would stop torturing myself.
I got to the hotel room and after settling myself in, I called him - I heard words that completely devastated me to my core - I think it was Monday and on Friday of that week, he was leaving Vancouver - he was leaving for Sydney, he was going to live there. It was too late, too little and too late. It was over and there was nothing I could do. He gave me his address and I was going to get a cab to his place - it was quite a ways away - Fleming Street - he had mentioned something about Ian Fleming when giving me the address. I had gotten ready - obviously expecting him to be there alone. The taxi driver had a job finding the place - but we got there in the end. When I walked into his basement suite, I was disappointed when I saw that he had friends there and that one of them happened to be a smoking hot blonde girl - not even 20 years old who was scantily clad and busting out her hip hop moves. They were all pretty young apart from him. I was caught off guard - and was not feeling particularly safe or secure around these new people and was also completely ungrounded. I was not in my body - sure the jetlag didn't help.
As I continued to take it all in - I realized that blondie was totally in the Slovenian's space - which completely spun me out - I was frozen in shock - disbelief and terror - what the hell was going on? Were they or weren't they together? His guy friend talked to me and did his best to make me feel comfortable and I could not for the life of me bring myself to speak to the Slovenian - I simply could not find the words - I was dumb struck. In shock!!!!! I felt my body begin to shake - I was literally trembling. I didn't know what to do so I just stayed there. Then blondie sat on his knee as they looked at the computer screen - okay so now it was crystal clear!!! What a complete b**tard!!!!!
And it gets worse - minutes later - they both, the Slovenian and blondie went into his bedroom TOGETHER!!!!! I got up to leave and had asked the other dude if he had any smokes - I needed a smoke badly - he didn't and he asked that I calm down and then I explained to him why I had come to Vancouver - to tell the Slovenian how I felt about him - finally tell him the truth - the truth shall set you free as they say.
They both came back out and he pulled up the zipper on his shorts - yes - you've read it right!!!!! The zipper on his shorts.
His friend dragged him out the the garden and spoke with him - no idea what he said but on his return he called me into his bedroom where he had just been with blondie - said that he needed to talk to me. I went in - devastated - he had told me that he did it because I had not spoken to him properly and he didn't know if I was interested in him. Honestly as I write this I cannot even imagine the damage that this night did to me - He told me that he 'cared for me now' - really???? Like really????? That's how you care for a girl. He even went to far as to ask me to stay the night - needless to say, I did not. I went back to the hotel. I think a part of me died that night - or a part of my soul splintered off and ricocheted so far into the universe and I'm only now seeing how 'hideous' that night had been.
Where do you search to find the love and light in this situation? I can see now why my heart shut down.
The next evening we met one of the same guys that I had seen during the first trip. The Slovenian had conveniently left some stuff in my hotel room with the obvious intent to come back for it that evening after drinks. And of course he did - I was in 'tough girl' mode and was determined not to get intimate with him, letting him think that I was easy. It's funny now to think back to the complete theatrics he put himself through to get himself to the bed - he pretended that a plug had somehow found it's way magically underneath the bed - it had weaved its way under the bed cover too :) Awwwwww :) We both lay awake the whole night - still - rigid - afraid to move - afraid of the rejection if one had made a move on the other.
We had walked all the way to Kitsilano Beach one afternoon and sat on one of the logs. There was a middle-aged fisherman, knee deep in water casting his net out. Apart from the 3 of us, there was no one else on that beach in those few moments. He finished whatever he was doing and walked up to us and without saying 'hello, how are you etc etc' - he just held his two forefingers up and brought them together and said "you two belong together". He walked away from us, and well that would have been the most opportune time for him to kiss me - it was there hanging in the air, this plapable physical thing, call it desire, that neither one of us acted on.
I can't believe how hard it is for me to relive this - these memories - I'm stunned at the emotion that it still stirs up for me - how little self-love I had - we both had in actual fact. The biggest and most profoundly important lesson that I have learnt in my life is that 'you can only give and receive love if you love yourself" - if you feel worthy of it.
Okay - so to tie things up - he had asked that I go with him to the airport - there was no room in the car - so they had to take two cars so that I could be there. Those few hours before we had been at a friends place - months before I had sent him an email from the UK with the song 'Have I told you lately that I love you?' - knowing that I would be looking around, the title popped up on the computer screen.
I walk there now at the airport I mean - through the gates where they check your boarding cards and you leave the trolleys - I remember how he lent down to hold me and told me to 'live my dream' - I never did tell him that I loved him - I did, love him I mean - they may just have been been moments that existed - milliseconds when my heart was wide open and trusting - moments when I loved him with my entire being - but they were real.
And then he was gone.
There is still so much to for me to take from this experience in my life - I don't think I have really made sense of it - I probably never will.
But did I tell you that there are moments when my heart and my mind are in stillness - when I am watering my plants or cleaning my closet when he comes back into my whole being - moments where I don't know whether to laugh or cry????
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