Go to the edge, look out, report back

Had a weird day today. Drove almost right up to the door of my former lover (love-of-my-life lover who I called time on nearly two years ago when I realised the relationship was killing me, us both). Stopped short, in a lay-by, and went for a short walk in a field. The straw was lying in heavy damp piles, waiting for the sun to make it dry enough to store for the winter. I smoked a few pretend cigarettes (have been on e-cigarettes for nearly a year now) and sat in the shade of a tree hoping she would magically just come by. 

I longed to see her.

This is the text I wrote while I waited for her in the field, and which I didn't send:

Why won't the missing stop? I'm going to go to my grave missing you and not knowing if I'm a fool for loving you, a fool for losing you, a fool for wanting desperately to win you back. I know nothing at all except I can't seem to breathe when I think about you and to my surprise and endless frustration, I think about you every day. I am not sorry for texting. I am not sorry I love you still. I am only sorry I can't seem to find a way out of this hole no matter how I try. I asked God to stop me messaging you if it was the wrong thing to do (I ask him all sorts of crap, as you know) and so I half expect a sign like a bee to sting me or a wild horse to suddenly jump out of the hedgerows and trample me to stop me sending this. Half (at least) of me hopes I won't press send. I don't want to unleash more pain for you or for me. Heaven knows we've both had enough. But you are the only person in this whole world I can tell, I can't seem to get over this person I once knew and it breaks my heart anew every day. I hope you're better than me, better than this.  

Then I cried. 

Because she wouldn't come by. She'd be out living, doing something fun like captaining a boat or cycling too fast down a steep muddy hill or playing with someone else's puppy. She would also not come by because she is okay, doing well, surviving and definitely not driving around her neighbourhood on the off-chance I might be hiding in a field near her house with a great view of cow parsley. 

Obviously.

I knew my tears were pathetic and self-pitying and after a while I began to realise what I really needed.

I didn't need her exactly, though I'd have loved to see her, to put my face deep into the fold of her neck, to feel her narrow back enfolded in my arms and to find the words to tell her I've finally learned some things she needed me to learn and am, I hope, better at loving, at understanding. What I need and want and was crying about was having or, in this case, not having someone to love who loved me back. 

It's insulting to her or to anyone that I could assume a former love could slot back into my life to fill the hole of gaping need, just because they had filled it once before. 

Once I got a grip on myself I had a long think about this and about how many others must feel like this. We all want to love and be loved, we all hope someone will magically walk up to us in a deserted field or supermarket or office or footpath and look into our eyes and everything will suddenly be all right. Everything will suddenly make perfect sense. The world and our hearts will sing. 

But it won't. At least it probably won't. It does happen for some people but not very many.

Instead I realised I had to do more work, I had to live and live well and stop moping about hoping to be found, rescued.

I have to do what I'm here to do. And that, for me, is to go to the edge, look out and report back what I see. 

I'm not sure if I am supposed to report back in writing or painting or the way I live and offer friends whatever support I can, but I'll try all of those and see if any are useful to others. Underlying that most basic human need to be loved and seen and wanted, is, I think, an even greater desire to be useful, do something valuable, worthwhile and meaningful.