Like a crime scene

Sometimes I'm surprised by how dense I am; I finally came to this conclusion a short time ago. When I fell in love with the woman of my dreams, I was asking something her heart could not in a million years give me. I was asking her to fix what had happened to me over the many years since she was last in my life. I was asking her to erase that intense pain. 

How unfair of me to ask that of her. She is a beautiful and capable woman, but she is not capable of fixing what she did not break, nor was it fair of me to ask such a thing. She's not a surgeon. She's not a magician. She's not a healer. She's many things, but she cannot put my heart back together. 

When I sat with her in a Mexican restaurant some time ago, I grabbed my chest and leaned in, saying, "My heart is like a crime scene." Any sane woman would have run if she had heard that. Maybe she did want to run inside, but she politely sat there with me. 

What a shithead I was. I didn't have the perspective I have now, of course, but I knew I was rushing into something. In the time I've had alone to ponder my life, I've healed so much. I'm light years beyond where I was then. It feels like I was a different man. Not just because I'm pudgier now. 

It's fantastic to see such growth in such a short amount of time. It's amazing to feel such progress. It's fascinating to look back on yourself like you're someone else now. One thing remains, of course. I'm still in love with her. My heart says her name with every damned beat. It still cries out for her in the night when my mind has gone to sleep. I wake with nothing but her coursing through my veins, bleeding out in my dreams. How many times does my heart say her name and my mind quickly erase it? Innumerable.

I felt I was being unfair to her. I know now I was truly being unfair. If I could take back my pitiful stab at love with her and try again, I would. A beautiful creature like her deserves a well-thought-out approach, something I've never been able to do with anything. 

I ask myself how long until I'll be ready to love again, but the answer is always the same: never. How many things in life have I not been ready for, though, yet I did them and did them well? How many times have I thought I was prepared but wasn't? It's like Peter walking on the water to Jesus. Here he was doing the unthinkable, then suddenly questioned what he was doing, allowing unbelief to enter his heart. Well, I'm already doing the unthinkable — I'm loving her with all of my tattered heart. Imperfectly, as always. But I'm doing it.  

My heart may still be like a crime scene, but I've been diligently cleaning it up. I've been putting in hard work. I've been making progress. I've been doing the unthinkable. I'm certainly not perfect, but I'm miles ahead of where I was when I sat with my sweet girl in that restaurant. And not just because I probably wouldn't order the fish soup again. 

As not prepared as I was to be sitting there with a woman like her, and as much as I'd like to do it over, I wouldn't give up those memories of the time I had with her for anything. I'll never be ready for her, but that won't stop me from loving her.