My Exotic Getaway

My heart is hurting and I don't see refuge in sight...

I am days away from embarking on an incredible experience and I can't muster much excitement...the kind that might be expected when one is in such a place. Instead, my grey matter is preoccupied with feelings of loss and longing, feeling for some missed opportunity...another incredible experience, though of a very different vein, just a plane ride away.

It comes down to love vs. life. Though, in some ways, love is life, in this case choosing one means losing a bit of the other.

I dread my "final departure" because I think about how long it will be before I see his face again... those, deep and mysterious eyes, that smile. The way he holds me, how he can make me laugh with my entire body, and with little effort on his part. His smell and his childlike heart. So many things to contemplate...almost instantly, I want to cry. He is intense and so my recollections, my feelings, my associations regarding him are intense as well.

Conflicting emotions have been the predominate theme in recent months, and since I've left him, they are only intensifying. I so thoroughly enjoy feeling enveloped by emotions when involved with someone, especially one that rocks my world in such a way...yet, part of me just wishes it would all go away. I am so guarded with my heart, but once I cross the point-of-no-return, my heart is almost totally exposed. So...the hurt, its going to get much worse, I know it. And if I'm struggling so much now, what then? And then there's the fact that we're in different places emotionally...that makes it hard to fully embrace what I'm feeling because I know he's not there.

What have you done to me, Vino?

I can liken it to going on holiday to an exotic and beautiful destination. When you arrive, you're overwhelmed by what it has to offer, and each hour, each day you are there, you feel so grateful, so rewarded. At some point, your impending departure darkens the mood and you realize you must soak up as much of the environment before you go home. Your quests, your days, they become longer...you don't know when it is you'll be back to this place, and who knows if it will even be the same as you left it? So it becomes imperative to enjoy the experience to the fullest, and at the expense of sleep, or money, or whatever.

That is what I've tried to do in this relationship...he has been my Fiji, my Paris...those places I constantly dream of exploring but have not yet been able to find my way to. They are the type of places I know I want to go back to, before I've even visited them once. They are expensive to get to, time-consuming to fully appreciate, their appeal is both visible and cryptic...but it is always worth the sacrifice.