Closure

I was never going to do this, write this, and maybe (possibly even hopefully) you don't come here anymore and will never read it. Again, some things in this life are just between me and me, but this seems like the appropriate place to put it.

I'm in the midst of something. Something that looks like you (looks like us), feels like you (feels like us), sounds like you (sounds like us), smells like you and brings up feelings that don't surprise me. The only surprise is that I'm getting to do it all again, almost verbatim, and this late in life.

The first moment I saw her it shook me to my foundation. And then she appeared by chance again. And again. Whether it's reality or my twisted perception, in my mind fate was punching me squarely in the teeth and telling me to pay attention. I've felt things since you left, but this is only the second time in my life I've felt anything like this.

The reminders of you were staggering. Half Japanese, the same age you were when we met (even more scandalous now, I know), hasn't been here long from a state out West and is contemplating leaving to go back "home". Curves that feel as though I sculpted her myself when my hands move over her body. The scent of her skin like home. Subtly-hidden tattos, each with a back story. Flat, hard stomach. Glasses in the evening. Sloppy pony tails. Sweeping her up as she sleeps on the couch and carrying her to bed. Hours and hours of conversation and millions upon millions of kisses. All too familiar.

So I'll play this game again, knowing that a huge part of the initial attraction was fueled by unfinished feelings for you. She came along with the huge advantage of me already being in love with her before we ever met. This ghost of you, of us.

Recently, after I had met her, but before I had gotten her attention and she had become a part of my life, a group of friends secretly swept me away to Vegas for a surprise birthday party. They were already there waiting as I was limo'd to the airport and flew first class solo. It gave me time to think as I flew past you. As I flew past Tucson, the place we decided would be "neutral ground", where we would one day live after a few years of marriage and your desire to leave CO finally kicked in. To think about how my mind always turns to you on airplanes, how I love you when I'm on airplanes. Anytime I'm going somewhere. I don't know why. Maybe it's because of all the places I've been, all the people I've been to them with, ultimately it still feels lacking because when I looked forward with you in my arms, you were supposed to be there.

The idea was for me to get everything on my birthday that I always say parties are lacking. Strippers, hookers, coke, ecstasy, etc etc. Mostly it was a joke, but my friends decided to try and bring it to that level as much as possible.
So there I sat, in the Spearmint Rhino with a line of Asian strippers waiting to give me lap dances at the behest of my Asian ex-girlfriend who organized the entire event. It hit me like a bolt that just about everything important in my life at this moment can be traced back to you.
Every girl I've dated since you is laced with something that was inspired by you. So many people who have shaped and guided my life (like the ex who organized the trip) are only in my life because of the seed you planted and my endless desire to recapture the feelings I had for you, the nights we shared and the hope I had. My job is a result of an ex who only caught my attention because of what you sowed in me. My house is the result of said job and prodding from another ex, an ex who only got my attention, again, because of the poison you laid in the wound.

Eventually I gave up on the hope and decided to just be happy with the 4/5ths. I was, and I still am. But it's hard to overlook the impact we had on me, when so much of my life is tangled up in people whom I invited into my life only because they held some semblance of the little girl with a ring tattoo and slight lisp that ran away with a piece of me, never to return, never to give that piece back.

I used to see you all the time. Then something changed and I hadn't seen you in years, but I saw you last October. At first it was out in clubs or on the streets, skewed by the slight twinge of alcohol. There would always be someone, the shape of the eyes, the fullness of the lips, the long brown hair... something. It would click in my mind and I would double-take, needing a few seconds to realize that you were far, far away and I would most likely never see you again. After a time that faded, occurred less frequently and eventually not at all. I had forgotten the taste and smell of your skin, the exact shade of your brown eyes and the sound of your voice.

Then one day, when I had finally gotten to the point where I hardly thought of you at all, I looked up and you were there. Only this time your eyes were the most beautiful green I have ever seen. And this time I refuse to let things unfold to where I have a conversation in 5 years about how rare these things are, after the realization sets in but it's too late.