Always Flashing Back…

I did it again.

I thought of you.

I thought about what it was like to spend time with you… about what it was like to share space with you. I remember when we used to talk to each other – messaging each other, calling each other to make plans to hang out; to make plans to bask in each other’s existence. I don’t know why or how even more than a year later I could still think about these moments, but it’s clear that it has to do with remembering how good those moments felt.

You were so amazing to me back then. I admired the way you looked at me – nobody had ever looked at me like that before… or at least it felt different when you did. You saw me in a way that I don’t believe anybody else did, and you let me know with the look in your eyes, by the way I would catch you looking at me, or by the way that our eyes would somehow simultaneously accidentally but intentionally meet, even from across the table, or across the room. Most guys don’t really see me – they’ll notice my body, my hair, maybe my face, and definitely my more confident and liberated energy, but never beyond this shell of my vessel… even the confident girls feel deeply.

But that’s all it was – you were one of the rare men I’ve encountered who wanted to learn more about me. To want to spend time with me. To want to hear and pay attention to what I actually had to say. And after you would listen to me, you would respond to everything I had to say because you were attentive – a rare quality for me to come by in the men I shared a physical attraction with. But that’s why I felt truly beautiful with you: you made me feel like there was more to me than just what I looked like or how I acted. You knew there was more to me than what presented before you, and you sought out to dig deeper into an untapped excavation site. You discovered the things that only I knew about, and at the time, that was revolutionary. Everything changed because of your efforts and desire to know more. It was exhilarating for someone to be curious and thoughtful about who I am when most just simply were excited to bare themselves inside. But you bore yourself inside me in a way that was never done before, nestling yourself in the hearth of my heart, becoming the coals to fuel my joy and my own evolution. I just need you to know that that’s why I still think about you… why I still flashback to spending time with you…

There’s so many beautiful, little moments we shared. Even now as I write this, I still feel some remnants of that feeling I had when I was with you. Back then it was a surge of energy that released from my heart and coursed through my veins, awakening every nerve in my body with a tingly sensation. This feeling would be accompanied by butterflies coming in waves of flocks, traveling from my heart to the tips of my fingers and toes, just as birds would fly south for the winter. It’s a feeling a person could never forget, and it’s a feeling that easily elicits something similar but watered down now when today I think about our time together, when I think about the way you used to look at me; when I think about the way it felt to feel your hands on my being. Except now, the surge of energy would pump from my heart but only make it halfway down my arms… I get goosebumps from thinking about our time together but only because it’s a ghost feeling: I’m feeling something that isn’t actually there. And that’s exactly why I get tripped up, even after all this time has passed since I last embraced you, since I last even spoke to you. Yet still, when I think about those memories, the chills come.

I don’t know why I get the chills when I think about what used to be. Is it a form of mourning? Is it a protective measure somehow? Why is it that you still give me chills even when I know it’s over? Do I just miss that feeling so much that when my mind brings back old memories, it sends signals to my body to recall those feelings? Or is it just mere psyche and bodily association with memories? What’s crazy is that once upon a time, it used to actually pain me to recall these memories… these feelings… if I recalled them, I would spiral into despair, sometimes reigniting the pain of heartbreak yet again… but now, it’s different. I can actually handle looking back on us and it’s not painful anymore. Sometimes those memories even make me hopeful actually. And part of that is because of you of course. I actually feel like I have a chance at cultivating a happy life with a partner, and I wouldn’t have this feeling today if we didn’t share whatever it was that we had. And for that, I am thankful. I hope you’ve managed to be thankful too.

It’s weird though, how I can manage to be thankful for our times together, be hopeful for a future love, yet still get that pain in my chest that’s just a mere echo of when the energy we shared first died out…

They say energy cannot be created or destroyed. But what happened to our energy? The unification of our souls and spirit, the immeasurable nuance of feeling so free and light when around each other? Where did that energy go? I find myself stumbling and thinking about this from time to time, getting overwhelmed with the need to understand where that energy went when all that happened was it merely got transformed, distributed, or transferred to something else. The energy is still there, and perhaps that’s why I even feel it now as I write this, it occasionally coming in and whispering one or two words onto the back of my neck, in which those whispers quickly tiptoe to dance upon my heart. Maybe it was never butterflies, but just tiny dancers who finally found a tempo they could all match together – a tempo to the ballad of you and me. They danced whenever we were together, whenever I would read your messages, whenever I would get the chance to tell you about my day or ask you about yours. They never danced at the thought of the future unless it was a future with you… I still have a hard time believing that I could have a bunch of tiny dancers waltzing throughout my entire body; but they would all dance for you. All the time. No matter what. And even I felt like dancing for you… all the time… no matter what… I hope I feel those tiny dancers again one day…

Do you remember when we danced together? That’s where I am always flashing back… Flashing back to you and me. Back to when things were simple, yet in truth they were complicated.

They say everything happens for a reason, and that must include heartbreak. The aches and pains and tears and holes, all in ones heart and soul – even all those happened for a reason. Nobody likes hearing that. It’s a fucked up conundrum because it is true; everything happens for a reason because it all has to do with divine timing, and sacred planning. But how can it be planned if we do not yet know of what’s in store in the future? My only answer is that each move made in today and in the past was a move deliberately made – no choices in the past were made entirely out of total incoherent consciousness. And no, blacking out does not count. I’m talking about for each moment we are conscious and aware of what we are doing, how we are behaving, aware of who we are with in that moment. Because if we are fully aware if these things, we must somehow be aware of our inner feelings too. But that isn’t necessarily the case for a lot of us; a lot of us have a side of us, a not fully awake part of us that somehow gets to call the shots. And even if now a person may come to realize that some (or even most) things done in the past were performed by their subconscious, that is still someone’s subconscious deliberately making a decision to show their true colors, to move them towards their true desire, to self sabotage them because they are truly scared of the possibility of finally succeeding in some regard. Whatever the case may be, there is deliberate planning that occurs. It happens. And I believe that’s what happened with us.

I don’t mind that my subconscious may have sabotaged the spark we had; my subconscious really having been the culprit who divided and redistributed our energy, transferring it to other means we needed to focus on in our lives. Our subconscious often tries to protect us from harm’s way, and for that I try not to be upset with it. I mean after all, it was only trying to do its job. I do want to apologize on its behalf for having snuffed out the fire between us; if that fire brought as much warmth to you as it did to me, I feel your pain and I wish you didn’t have to suffer at all. I know though, however, after that fire snuffed out, the ember and ashes of our magic ended up pushing you towards something else – towards something you always cared about and wanted to delve more into. I saw that after our magic burned out, and I couldn’t help but think it was so beautiful.

Even though sometimes it still pains me to the core to recognize that I was never meant to stay in your life forever, I know in my heart that I at least performed a catalyst for you, in which you were able to become more you, an evolved but more exciting you. And on the same token, this knowledge has managed to bring me this unfathomable elation to know that you’ve done the same for me.