Remembering what I tried to forget

My favorite movies and books always included these lavish, romantic scenes with grandiose confessions of love. The lines of my favorite poems and songs paved a walkway over the broken cracks of the roads in my heart.

“... I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”

-Sonnet XVII, Pablo Neruda

These beautifully translated words swirled through my head in the days after it happened.

As a means to protect myself, (at least that's what I assume) my brain has blocked out moments and memories that hurt to replay. But with nothing but time on my hands these days, my brain has taken it upon itself to reprise these moments I've never processed. What I can remember is blacking out after drinking excessively, and being bottle-fed Disaronno and Bacardi Silver. I remember waking up on the floor of a men's bathroom at a campground and then again in my tent. I remember calling him by the name of his friend and telling him that I would never touch him. I remember a noise I made. And I remember waking up the next day, on the beach, hungover and full of shame.

He had broken up with me days before and then this. I didn't want this, not like this. I felt awful.

Hurt. Empty. Unexplainably cold. Ruined. Disappointed. Disgusting. Ashamed. Rejected.

U2's "With or Without You," was playing on someone's radio nearby and they hit repeat.

"... AND YOU GIVE YOURSELF AWAY ... AND YOU GIVE ... AND YOU GIVE ..."

To this day, whenever I hear that Yamaha drum machine beat and Ibanez bass guitar run through the chords round and round, I remember cradling my shoulders in my arms tighter and tighter, slightly rocking, unable to cry. I can feel how it echoed through me. This song that I once loved was now tarnished, just like me.

I wanted to talk to someone, anyone about it, but I couldn't. One friend said she was happy for me that it happened. However, the most painful part was yet to come.

Days later, I went to go see him at his house. I needed to talk and I was hoping he could help me make sense of it. He kissed me. I remember laying side by side as he pulled me in close. It was nice, but I needed to know where we stood. He had just dumped me before this happened, so maybe this meant things were different, well because things were different. I had convinced myself that what happened was because he loved me, because people don't do that unless they love you, right?

I remember the way he looked at me and how my stomach dropped. He told me he liked the way things were and told me he'd like to continue having them be that way. He. Didn't. Love. Me.

I couldn't talk to anyone. I was ruined for nothing. He rejected me. I came home and cried in my basement. Mum was out with my stepdad, but my younger brother Ant saw it all unfold. I couldn't stop throwing up. I was so anxious and wondered what was wrong with me. I couldn't tell him. I ached.

My friends ended up learning what happened, but they didn't know what I was going through. It was as if it was a rite of passage.

I clutched the words of Pablo Neruda. I'd watch movies about love and look at the world differently. My biological father had already told me most of my life how hard it was to love someone like me and this solidified it.