Friday, 01.06.2012 - 2:53 pm.
I made it back to Chile safely. It was very, very difficult leaving my family and friends behind this time, and the entire day of travelling I had this painful knot in my throat. Though it was always there, I could feel it diminishing as the distance grew longer, as the landscape beneath the plane changed.
I woke up at 3 am on wednesday. The flight to Panama took off at 7 am and I slept for most of its two hours. I got to the airport on time to use the restroom and find my gate to board the plane to Santiago. It was a six hours and a half flight, and I got to that city at 8 pm. Give or take time differences, but it was still a day. I grabbed a bite and headed to take my 10:30 pm bus from the capital city to my region, to finally wake up in my adoptive town at 6:30 am on thursday, yesterday.
I didn't feel it was such a long, long trip, but it was excruciating. The whole time, when I wasn't fighting tears over leaving my family behind, I was crying (fighting didn't work) over Joseph and his wife. No, seriously. I thought about them the entire trip, thus feeling like shit, inadequate and worthless. It was, indeed, a guilt trip, about how much I'd failed as a girlfriend. I wasn't sad, I was depressed and ashamed.
I was lucky that the three seats on my row on the flight to Santiago were all for me. I fell asleep for a couple of hours, not because I was tired from half a day of travelling, but because I was emotionally exhausted by the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions related to Joseph. Many times tears streamed down my face as I looked out the window or rested my head on a pillow, tears streaming down as if I'd found out the night before that he was very happy with her and was not coming back to me.
The bus trip overnight felt even longer than the entire day of flying. I fell asleep from 11 pm to 1 am the next day, and then I couldn't lose consciousness until 5 am. The whole time I spent it with my eyes closed, but thinking of the same things. By then the intensity wasn't the same, though, I was more calm. I came up with a few things to say to Joseph if he writes me again, but it could take him years to contact me again, or just won't at all for the rest of our lives.
And it hit me, that's the ideal thing: to know that there will never any contact with him again, ever. I knew it at some point, but it seems I'm a very hopeful person and I always return to wishing for these things. And it was harder when he wrote me for christmas.
See, his son is not growing backwards. It's not like he's Benjamin Button and will suddenly dissapear into his mother's womb to never return (I know, Button didn't die in a womb). He and his wife are not divorcing. And if they did someday, she'll still take the prize for being the most important woman in his life, and the most painful break-up (with me, he just kicked me out and he was ready to do it). I can't change any of that, and it'd be a tragedy if any of those things happened to him.
And it's not just his own life choices getting in the way and giving me a reason to give up. Mine too. My choices brought me far away, to make my dream of studying abroad come true, and to make me find the best man I could have ever wished for. Perhaps it was Andrew the guy I was thinking of when I got worried about Joseph and wished, say, he kept having fun with his passion, real-time strategy games, but also became responsible enough to build a home with me. A home not under anyone's parents' roof.
So on the bus ride, I realized I really, really have to stop looking forward to finding him ever again. I won't have a chance to tell him all these things that keep killing me; he got away with hurting me so much and will never understand the harm he caused. I can only keep living my life, certain that he's not in my future. In the end, that's wonderful.
I got off the bus at 6:30 am yesterday, and Andrew wasn't there. I'd imagined that moment, getting off and seeing him waiting for me with a big smile. But he was late, so instead I sat miserably on a bench, exhausted, cold, hungry, thirsty and incredibly overwhelmed by my feelings. Until he finally ran to me, with a jacket and a bottle of water for me. It was a long, long kiss. I'd missed him so much.
He took the morning off of work to be with me. I unpacked, gave him his gifts and crashed on the bed. I slept for four hours straight and so did he. I was still feeling confused about being so far away from home but happy to be sleeping next to my boyfriend. And when I woke up, it felt like days since I'd travelled.
On a side note, I met with Q the day before my trip. He made quite an effort to get out of work for a while to come see me. It was great seeing him again, actually, and I found myself feeling very happy for him and how his life is going. I wanted to ask him if he was dating anyone and hoped he'd say yes, but I didn't want him to ask me the same question. Other than that, I enjoyed seeing him. And, of course, this amicable encounter made me wish things had been different with Joseph, so we could meet up as friends and, most important, I could have been able to be genuinely happy for him.
Anyway.
I'm back on my routine, still a bit tired. Andrew has changed a few things around the house and it's even more cozy now. A lot of our friends say he looks happier since I returned and he says his soul came back to his body. You could really tell he was waiting for me. I couldn't wait to see him and to have him again.
Now we have to start making plans for this year and for the next ones (based on a conversation I had with Brother #1, about having a life project and stablishing long-term plans to make it happen). Although we're so overwhelmed with university work right now that we're just trying to survive January. But we'll take it lightly tonight, with wine and cheese. Score!
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