Ever since I discovered that entries could be saved in a place called "memories," I decided to take advantage of my store's broadband to gather together entries of note, funny stuff like TROY 2: TROY HARDER and stuff for The Hefner Monologues. What I got instead was rather akin to ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, as I got to watch the events and the emotions therein of the past year and a half unfold (or should I say, "fold", since I was going backwards?)
What was really interesting was going over the recent ones, just a couple months ago, with me at the height of my misery and pain and craziness. And then going further back, and watching the pain lessen, the problems get better, the confusion clearing up, the love returning, and then... contentment. Blessed, underrated contentment. Now understand: as I am saying this, I am not feeling sulky or angsty or wallowy. I'm just rather... marveling at this sensation, and I'm just waiting for the depression to kick in again, but it's not.
And then I go back even further, to the Summer of Tammy. A marked difference between Tammy and Misty is how, with Tammy, I was just... burning. There's no other way to describe it. I was burning for her. Even at the worst of it, there was a perverse kind of beauty in what I was feeling. A misguided romanticism that is/has not been present during the Misty debacle. And I look at those entries in the fall and I wonder how it was that I couldn't tell I was already over Tammy months before I thought I knew? Why didn't I realize that I was actually happy and content until Misty started to pull away? Why don't we know what we have until it's gone? With Tammy, we both knew it was doomed from the very start, so I made sure to savor every second we had because it might as well have been our last. Had I but known, I would have set out to make every second count between Misty and myself. Every second. So much time wasted. But then, that's how it works, doesn't it? I look back at an entry I did, a survey, done right after Oedipus/Antigone, and most of you will remember what I was like then. Only one person commented on that entry, and it was her first comment on my LJ ever:
"i swear, the more i find out about you, the more smitten i become. better watch out ;) and allow me to help out on the best physical feature thing... i would say yes, your sparkley blue eyes, because you can't help looking into them and getting all flustered and giddy and silly feeling... and your lips, you difinitely have beautiful lips... and your sexy sideburns, and your hair for that matter... ahem, anyhow..."
And I think about how much pain I was going through for Tammy. All that pain and torment and burning, and all the time, there was Misty. Now, I understand full well that there's nothing I could have done differently, at least not to have changed things ultimately (or so logic tells me, against the screaming of my desires). I'm not thinking, "Oh, if ONLY I had said something...!" no, that's not what this is about. Still, in retrospect, it's something. Something. It's even kinda funny, in a way. It makes me wonder if it's happening again, y'know? It makes me wonder if, as I'm dealing with getting over Misty, someone else isn't out there reading this on the sidelines. I wonder.
And then, I accidentally discovered this picture, which I had been avoiding for months now. I honestly thought the link for the photo was down, so it wouldn't be up when I pulled up the entry, but somehow... there it is. Still up there, for all to see. It's still the only picture I have of her. But somehow, maybe it's just the luck of the draw and I'm feeling particularly ok today or maybe just maybe I'm actually feeling better, I don't feel hurt. My immediate reaction was to smile in wonder and say, "oh geez, it's still here." Again, we'll see if this mild euphoria lasts, but right now, it's actually kinda nice. Those were simpler times, with us both acting silly and playful instead of as close and romantic as we were feeling. Silly as the picture is, I can really feel the love radiating through it. And right now, that feels ok.
I look back on Tammy, and I've purged all that hurt from my memory. It's gone. I've forgiven her, moved on, and all I really remember is the love. That's the way I always wanted it and thanks in part to Misty, it happened. I hope in a year's time, I'll be able to do that with Misty too. (although truth be told, it's a bit easier not actually keeping contact with Tammy; I don't know if I'd be able to do as well if I were to still be friends with Misty, so that in itself will likely take a lot longer). But now I really do understand Jim Carrey's sentiment, even in the midst of all the bad of the meltdown: "Please, let me keep this one memory. Just this one."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
