SIENNA
June 8th, 2015
I had waited a year for the day to arrive. Instead of a celebratory dinner and discussions of our fond memories as a couple, I sat alone under a blanket of pain. A month had passed since I last saw Vince, and although I hoped the pain would eventually stop, it hadn’t so much as decreased.
As severe on this particular day as it was the day he rode away, it was apparent living with the pain was something I would be forced to deal with. Over the course of the last month I prayed a lot. Not for Vince to return or for the pain to diminish, but for the ability to continue to be myself and not to fall prey to the evils of anger or hatred.
The same fate that brought Vince and me together broke us apart, and for me to reserve gratitude for one and misery for the other would be to second guess the hand of God. I could never claim to fully understand life or all of the rewards, gifts, complications and losses associated with it, nor did I feel I needed to.
Living, it itself, was my gift; and I felt it was my responsibility to do so to the best of my ability. Keeping my chin up and my spirits high, despite the pain I was feeling, was not only in my best interest, but mandatory to me keeping my sanity.
Attempting to grow from the situation I had put myself in, I developed my own opinions of pain and healing. I convinced myself the process of healing brought along with it pain; the more difficult the healing process, the more severe the pain. The pain acted as a reminder of the damage done, and in the mind of the wise, a deterrent to repeat the process which brought about the pain in the first place.
It made perfect sense, at least to me. A runner with a torn muscle felt pain until the muscle had healed, and the process took weeks. A broken bone was painful until the fracture mended itself, requiring a few months to heal. A burn victim with severe burns over half of their body might take an entire year to heal, the pain requiring a morphine drip to be manageable. Seeing the differences in these damages, the healing processes, and the severity of the pain allowed me to believe one day I would no longer hurt.
But I knew the healing process would be a long one.
Although I continued to review books over the last month, I hadn’t had a drink of wine since the day I passed out drunk and missed my date with Vince. I didn’t swear off alcohol, or convince myself I had a drinking problem, but I did realize my having drank too much wine on that particular night caused a problem that I wouldn’t have had in the absence of the wine.
Coffee, however, was a different story.
“So, is that your Continental?” he asked.
I turned toward the voice and nodded my head. “Sure is.”
“Mid-sixties?” he asked as he pointed to the seat beside me.
I nodded my head at his guess of the year, not at his request to sit.
“1965,” I said.
He sat down and smiled.
I did fully expect to one day heal, but in the end I knew I wouldn’t forget Vince, stop loving Vince, or ever be able to love anyone else. My love for Vince wasn’t something I had developed; it had been inside of me for a lifetime, waiting for the person who was entitled to it to come along and claim it.
I believed there were many women, who in the absence of finding the right person, convinced themselves the person standing before them was the right person. I didn’t have to convince myself of anything with Vince, all I had to do was be in his presence. Long before the first kiss, I was well aware he was somehow special to me, and although I wasn’t sure why or to what degree, the first kiss was all it took for me to fully understand what it was he provided to me.
He, through his actions, words, wisdom, and expression, provided proof that he was entitled to receive the love which had been reserved within me for a lifetime, and without my expressed consent, he received it.
I initially found it odd that I didn’t make a conscious decision to give Vince my love. I almost felt cheated that I didn’t have to convince myself what it was I was feeling at the time, I simply knew, and allowed it to happen. It was natural, it was simple, and it required nothing on my part to exist. It was not developed, nor did it happen over time. I had always felt I would allow someone to have my love, or that I would give it to them, but that wasn’t the case with Vince.
Something in me simply snapped as if a switch had been flipped. My love was his and he merely took what he was entitled to.
It was then that I knew the love I felt was true.
The day of the money shot.
“Would you mind sitting somewhere else?” I asked.
He ran his hand through his hair, shook his head lightly, and his hair fell down along his forehead. “I just thought you might want some company,” he said.
I shook my head and grinned. “I’m in love. I have all the company I need.”