When I see your face...

...I get breathless. When I see your name my heart pounds like it's going to hammer its way out of my chest. My stomach hurts at the sight, and it feels like my throat is going to get so tight that I can't breathe. It's strange how the palpitations of crush-ism and the panicked galloping of pain can be so similar...why do you still have this effect? I haven't spoken to you for months. I haven't seen pictures of you for weeks. And yet...the barest brush I have with you, even if it's just your name, results in reeling back and feeling the brunt of all that agony AGAIN.

Why does this keep happening?

My mantra for weeks has been 'I'm in repair--I'm not together but I'm getting there'. Progress is two steps forward, one step back. (I thought about saying 'ten steps back', but if that were the case I'd still be curled up sobbing in bed every day.) Each shaky building block looks as if it's finally balanced, but it comes crashing down at the slightest puff of wind. 

In light of all this...I wish I had never met you. I wish we had never crossed paths, had never known the other existed, and gone off in merry oblivion. Then there would have been none of the divorce-like repercussions, the pain of promises made and not kept, and the agony of being reminded that you are still out there.

You know what they say, 'if wishes were horses'...well, I'd be broke if that were the case. And burned out on horses. But I digress.

I know what people have told me, about how I now have a PhD in heartbreak and what to look for the next time around (I can hardly bear to think about anyone else in that manner, much less contemplate a future relationship), how to test the waters even more cautiously, etc...but I don't see how it was for the best to experience that. The waters remain untested for an unforeseeable amount of time. I don't know how you are about it all--though I've had the persistent thought that you're in a similar area of pain, and avoid me for the same reason that I can't even look at your name.

I don't hate you. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm still rather in love with you in a limping, cautious, pain-ridden sort of way. But I can't help wishing that we had never met.

 In closing, the mantra begins again.

(I let this post sit for about an hour and came back...my heart is still palpitating and the breath comes shortly. Urgh.)