30DOW: Day 26

Strangers

“You wouldn’t say those things to me if you knew where I come from,” I say to him.

I don’t mean for the words to come out, but they do. And it’s the truth afterall. Immediately I regret what I’ve said. Now there will be questions, he will look at me strangely, I think he thinks I’m just trying to impress him, but I’m not. I’m trying to warn him, before my big mouth and my anger and frustration and depression and anxiety is unleashed all at once on him.

“And where do you come from,” he says, half amused, maybe half disgusted.

But how can I tell him? It’s a shameful place. It’s full of pain and sadness and, well, nothing good. I surprise myself by realizing that I want him to know. I want him to know Me.

Not many people have been able to handle my truths. They pretend to care in the beginning, but once I start to tell them they cringe, they shy away. I’ve lost a lot of friends because of my truths. But I think he could handle it. The way he carries himself, the way he works, the way he speaks. His every move is calculated and I know it’s because he is driven- driven to prove himself, maybe driven to make up for something.

I heard sadness and exhaustion and defeat in his voice once. It frightened me. He’s always so calm and cool and in control. I tried to tell myself it was because he was having a rough day, because he was tired of the b.s. in his personal life. Sometimes I wonder if he ever gets tired of life in general. Are people ever really so calm as often as he is?

Sometimes I dream about him. In my dreams he is gentle, tender yet somehow still guarded. He is afraid, just as I am afraid, of letting someone in- of letting someone too close. I can tell it’s exhausting for him to begin new things, just as it is exhausting for me to begin new things. Opening up is so hard for us. But in my dreams, the way we dance tells me he could open up to me- that he has considered it.

Back here in the real world we haven’t spoken for several months. He seems happy these days and I am happy for him. Sometimes it makes me a bit sad that we will never find out more about one another- he about where I come from and I about where he is going. I think we would contrast each other quite nicely. But once upon a time our paths crossed and maybe that was all it was destined to be.