WHOLENESS AND LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS

March 12, 2018.

Every now and then you feel like the road is calling you. You feel like this because your insecurity has you hearing voices. You hear the voices like the sound of the wind: fervent, whispery, gusty, but ultimately piercing.

You also know there’s a part of you out there that holds the key to your wholeness; but since you can’t get on the road to meet her, you sit on your wheelchair hoping and dreaming that she comes to you instead.

You sit by the window when you are bored; most times taking a laugh at the sight of two fighting pigeons. You don’t know why you laugh, like you don’t know why they fight. Perhaps the pigeons fight because flying gets boring sometimes, and maybe you laugh because they make your loneliness less boring too. Either way, when the fighting is over, you still feel lonely inside.

You hate being lonely, but this loneliness has nothing doing with you wanting to be around people, but rather of you needing to be complete within yourself. But you know so long you are here, and so long your woman is somewhere else, the circle of love that ought to make you whole would always be a stuttering arc steeped in uncertainties.

You drift between fantasies and moods. One moment you are hitting the ‘Love’ reaction button to almost every Facebook post she makes, the next minute you wish you are subconsciously hitting the ‘Sad’ reaction button when your fears suggest you just might be guy number two, to another man’s girl number one. So you drift between love and doubt. You drift again and again till your love merges with your doubt to create a fusil hollowness that leaves your heart burning within your chest.

Often your mornings feel like nights, and your mornings only comes after you have had dreams you wish were real -- dreams of you becoming whole, and of you embracing your lover as the feral surge of your desires has you both glowing in the intimacy of your feelings. But because dreams are bloody deceptive, you wake only to see the reality of a rot-smeared ceiling.

But the road keeps calling you, and the more it screams out your name, the more you imagine your woman being in bed with another man. You hear her groans like a shriek, you feel his thrust like a cut, but you snap out just as it occurs to you that your mind is only playing on your fears. Then you start to cry. You cry because you are ashamed your fears have you imagining things that would only make the distance between you and her longer.

But how do you love someone you might never meet? How do you trust a woman you can’t see? How can you tell she’s in love with you when she’s never looked you in the eyes to say the words? How do you even know you’re in love at all? Your mind pummels you with these questions, and you respond by throwing your phone at the wall because you hate to think what you feel isn’t true.

So you drift again, and this time you see yourself on a long, lonely road that only returns you back to your bathroom. You feel stuck, and the feeling of you been trapped only reminds you of your limitations. In the end, you sit under the shower, berating your mind for having you feel things you don’t understand. But perhaps you do understand how you feel, and perhaps you’re only scared your inability to heed the call of the road, might sooner or later cost you the woman that makes you whole.