I Used To Be...

This weekend I took a journey to my past.  I woke up, ate breakfast, packed a bag, hopped in my car, and drove until I reached nine years ago.  His eyes were still a piercing blue.  He still made me laugh at his jokes.  He still made me feel safe, and he could still melt all tension and anxiety completely away from me just by being near.  The chemistry was still there between us.  Everything was exactly the same as it had been before—and it wasn't.  I was different.

Mr. Cadet has always been my ghost of lost-loves past, and I finally had the chance to see him over the weekend after so much time had passed since our last encounter.  Meeting up with Mr. Cadet again after all these years was absolutely wonderful.  It was amazing to see how your memory holds on to things that you don't even realize were there.  We would be sitting there talking and catching up, and he would do this cute little thing where he tips back his head slightly when he is saying something funny, all while giving me this goofy little grin, and I would immediately think—I remember that!  When he hugged me, just the way he smelled would send a tidal wave of emotions and memories crashing down on me.  And when I looked at him, though almost ten years older now, I could still see that same 23-year-old who used to race me across town in his truck so I wouldn't miss my curfew—and who would then stop in the church parking lot down the street from my parents' house to kiss me when we made it with a few minutes to spare.

Mr. Cadet hadn't changed a bit, except older, and maybe a little wiser.  He was still the same handsome, charming, genuine, honorable gentleman.  So why didn't my heart drop into my stomach when he looked at me like it used to?  Why didn't I allow myself to jump into the sky and float along with fluffy clouds of silly emotion?  And though he told me more than once that he had a great time and wanted to meet up again soon, why was I skeptical that I would ever hear from him again and preparing myself for the worst in my heart?

I suppose that I shouldn't expect to be normal quite yet.  It has been nearly a year, but it feels as though I have been "getting over" my divorce for much longer than that.  I'm finally ready to be normal again.

But instead, it feels as though a part of me has died, leaving an empty void in my chest, and the part of me that knew how to love someone is gone forever.  I wonder sometimes if I will ever be capable of that kind of love again.  When my ex-husband destroyed our marriage, he seems to have destroyed the part of my heart that was filled with hope for fairytale endings and the ability to feel romantic passion.  And here I am left, not only with a broken heart, but with a broken spirit—and wondering if it ever ends.

I wrote this poem when I was in college, around the time that Mr. Cadet was in my life on a daily basis, and I found myself thinking about it today.  At least I know that, when I wrote this, I must have been feeling close to the same way that I am today, ten years later.  Somehow, in the years after I wrote this poem, I became that glorious bird again.  Hopefully, I can do it once more now.

I used to be…

A bird with golden wings—
I lived high up in the mountain tops
That were peaked with silvery snow.

Each morning
When the sun flashed
Its first brilliant rays of daylight across the land,
I would swoop down
Straight down
Passing clouds as I dropped,
Falling so fast towards treetops
And then
Remounting the wind
And letting it carry me up again.

I used to fly behind waterfalls
And let my big golden wings
Gently brush the crystal-blue water.
I used to sweep through grassy fields
Covered with wildflowers
And leafy trees
Filled with chattering chipmunks...
Then
I used to rise above the clouds
And flutter in and out of rainbows.

At last, as the sun’s bright light
Disappeared behind the mountains,
I used to land softly in my nest
With the sweet taste of freedom on my beak—

A bird with golden wings…but I’m not anymore.

Forever fearless,
Dumbfounded Divorcée