Spring Comes

This was going to be the post I submitted for  The Red Dress Club but I decided that I liked this one better. Anyway, here are the details of the prompt

This week’s assignment is to write a short piece, either fiction or non-fiction, about something ugly – and find the beauty in it.

Word limit is 600.

“Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart
You’re shaking my confidence daily
Oh, Cecilia, I’m down on my knees
I’m begging you please to come home

Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart
You’re shaking my confidence daily
Oh, Cecilia, I’m down on my knees
I’m begging you please to come home
Come on home”

Cecilia- Simon & Garfunkel

Dear June,

I joined up with this group of women who enjoy writing. Ah rather expect that you might accuse me of having done so because I am a low down, double dealing, philandering fool who can charm the skirt off of one while unhooking the bra of another…simultaneously.

Ok, you wouldn’t say any of those things. If you were talking to me you’d tell me that you think that my writing is beautiful and that I know how to make words sing a song so sweet your heart swells. Or maybe you wouldn’t say that either.

Maybe you’d get lost in all those things that happened to us. Maybe you’d be lost in the hurt and the pain of loss. Maybe you’d wander through the dead weeds of the best relationship that either one of us ever experienced.

It would be easier to look at the black hole of love that we got sucked into and pretend that every negative experience is representative of the whole. I’ll admit that sometimes I prefer not to think of the song of my heart and instead focus on the pain. It is always easier to say goodbye when you are angry.

I know you…still know you. I see the truth of your heart and understand that you have a list of reasons that you use to maintain the hurt and the anger. That helps you to maintain the distance and makes our separation easier to deal with.

And I know that it hurts you to hear that I burn and I ache for you. Blame it on that fucking fire we set off. Blame it on lips so sweet I can taste them now. Blame it on my stubborn and foolish nature.

“Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia
Up in my bedroom (making love)
I got up to wash my face
When I come back to bed
Someone’s taken my place

Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart
You’re shaking my confidence daily
Oh, Cecilia, I’m down on my knees
I’m begging you please to come home
Come on home”

I am just a boy asking a girl to let him love her again and to be loved in return. I am just a boy who knows what it means to run with the moon and howl. Just a boy who feels the pain of having loved and lost.

But I am more than that too. I am a man who knows how to bootstrap himself back to that place he once stood upon. That roar you hear is me challenging the world to stop me from climbing back up that mountaintop.

The fall was long and painful. I think that on the way down I bounced off of every rock, tree branch and cactus. Since we haven’t talked about it I can’t say how it was for you but I am sure that it wasn’t easy. That is not ego or arrogance speaking, just an observation of what happens when you lose the love of your life.

But the best part of falling down is that when you pick yourself up and dust yourself off you learn things about yourself that you didn’t know before. You find new sources of strength and gain a deeper understanding about who you are and what you want. And that is the sort of thing that helps a relationship.

The self awareness and understanding of what your own needs opens your heart in ways that you wouldn’t have expected. It seems counter intuitive, but it is true. It helps enable you to learn how love your partner unconditionally and to show them the full extent and depth of your heart.

“And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make.”
The End- The Beatles

Love,

Johnny