Yesterday, I allowed some of the love in me to die. Rather, not love, precisely, but the hope for love. Also, rather, I didn’t really allow it to die so much as I actively aggressively killed it. Because one can only wait around so long for something akin to feelings of love to finally be returned to one from one’s beloved. And since I am usually not the waiting around kind of guy, I finally decided to let it go.
So I committed emotional homicide. It had to be done. I cannot continue to dole out pieces of my heart and soul to someone who does not give me pieces of their own in return. I cannot continue to make such a huge emotional investment in someone when I know, via actions, words, and experiences, that I will never receive a return on that investment. And I cannot stand in one place, watching my life pass me by in a blur, and wait to hear the words, “I love you”…when I know that they will never come.
So. Yeah. Deed done.
Hey! Does anyone else remember the Troll Book Club from elementary school? And those little newspaper-y fliers your teachers would hand out every Monday, and then you’d mark up the order slip with, like, 85 books (if you were a voracious reader like I was as a small child), and hand in your slip on Friday and wait with bated breath until your teacher passed out the orders to the class when they arrived the following week?
I loved the Troll Book Club.
When I was, like, eight, I became entirely hooked on this mystery romance series that was actually marketed toward the older pre-teen female demographic. (Yet another reason why it should not have come as a surprise to anyone when I announced that I was gay.) The series was called “Windswept,” and each book boasted titles that were at once mysterious yet cheesy, e.g., The Silvery Past…The Red Room…The Ghost of Graydon Place…Yesterday’s Girl. No matter what occurred in each book’s narrative, two elements could always be counted on: mysterious intrigue…and The Perfect Boy. Of course sometimes the dynamic between the teenaged female protagonist and The Perfect Boy was not always perfect, but it always ended up that way: True And Perfect Love…with The Perfect Boy Who Would Love Her Forever.
I suspect that my infatuation with the books in this series had at the very least a little to do with the formation of my overly romantic mentality; with my expectation that I, too, would eventually find that True And Perfect Love…with The Perfect Boy Who Would Love Me Forever.
Except that never happened.
(Obviously.)
Anyway, those four titles in the series that I listed above happened to present themselves to me while I was exploring several boxes of my belongings following my mother’s memorial service in Chicago several years ago, and I “squeed” with delight and carried them back to Honolulu with me. I spent a lot of this past weekend lounging about my apartment, pouring through those four novels, eating too much Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, and crying.
(I did attempt at some point on Saturday to take some sort of initiative and turn the day into a good one, but that effort was ironically rewarded with a deluge of rain once I finally reached Chinatown, so obviously I was not going to sit outside my favorite Maunakea Marketplace coffee stand and drink my sugared coffee in the rain, so I ended up yelling “FUCK IT!” and returning home to my beloved young adult novels, my ice cream, and my crying.)
My favorite title of the four turned out to be Yesterday’s Girl. I had, of course, forgotten the romantic dynamic between the protagonist, Kate Carlisle, and her Perfect Boy, Adam Parker. On the surface, their relationship was romantic, loving, caring, perfect…save for those moments when Adam would become unexpectedly cold, aloof, distant, for seemingly no reason, and completely pull away from Kate. Of course the reason for his aloofness is woven into the mystery of the book, which of course is eventually solved, resolved, and POOF! Happily Ever After For Kate And Adam!
It reminded me a lot of the dynamic between myself and the person whose affections, as referenced above, I have decided to psychologically condition myself not to want. (Um. Minus that whole bit about Happily Ever After. Obviously.) Because I cannot continue to put the emotional energy that I have been putting into this friendship / relationship / whatever; it is just far too draining for me.
Wow this article is kind of all over the place, isn’t it? Now how was a I going to wrap this up all nicely and relevantly again? *scratches head*
Oh. Right.
Sometimes, I wish I were eight again. Still ordering Windswept Mystery Romance books via the Troll Book Club. Still devouring their storylines like candy.
And still believing that life was actually going to turn out like it turned out for the protagonists in the books.
Sometimes, I miss yesterday’s boy.
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