Reckless abandon. I remember telling you once that I liked that phrase. Then, when I thought about it, it seemed so positive. Reckless abandon. To take leaps and bounds towards my dreams. To stand out on a limb and stretch for the stars, for my happiness. To take chances in life and love and not worry what would come of it. I certainly did some of those things. I showed some form of reckless abandon... but not all that I'm exactly proud of.
Now, reckless abandon is a phrase I loathe. A phrase I fear. A phrase that makes my heart collapse and my chest implode. It immediately brings tears to my eyes and waves of sickness in my stomach. Reckless abandon. To leave me without any regard for how I feel. To show no concern for the consequences of the harsh words you said to me. To carelessly toss my life apart from yours and never look back. Reckless abandon. Use it in a sentence.
You broke my heart with reckless abandon.
And still I love you. Your ghost haunts me day and night. He whispers sweet things in my ears. Things like, "Good morning beautiful. I love you." He uses your tone and inflection when he calls to me, "Hey babe." Exactly the way you said it. So happy to see me. Sometimes he sits in the chair across the room and pats his chest the way you did when you wanted me to come rest my head. I want to feel your embrace. I want to breathe you in. I move towards the chair and my ghost beckons, "Babe, you are so beautiful." I smile and move closer. I place my knee in the cushion and gently slide my arms around the edge of the chair; I lower my head to your chest.
I can't feel you. I try to breath you in but you don't have a scent. I raise my eyes to meet yours. You're gone.
I've never had these feelings for anyone before. I never made room for them so when you're not here to carry them, I don't know where to place them. I don't know much of anything anymore. I know that I hurt. I know that I love you. I know that you're gone. Anything else seems so trivial now.
Before, I was freaking out about a job. I thought I couldn't get one. I thought I wasn't good enough. Not smart enough. I thought I would fail time and time again. Each opportunity I missed flashed before me and filled me with regret. I felt insignificant. Now everything seems trivial. And I know I am insignificant. People always said I was going places. Paris. New York. A person once told me that they could see me sitting in the streets of a busy city selling my paintings and taking breaks to dance around with a tambourine. I've never painted nor played the tambourine before. I always thought I just happened upon things. I didn't feel like I ever had any control. I just "let the universe unfold as it may"--a philosophy I adopted when I was 15 and going through a Buddhist "phase", as my mother would phrase it. I never thought I could make things happen. Why be so arrogant? I still don't think I can make things happen. Not anything. Not most things. Especially not matters of the heart. Certainly not with your heart.
I love you with reckless abandon and now I know a deeper meaning to the phrase. I don't know that I like that part of myself anymore. I've always been Alice in Wonderland: chaotic, questioning authority, misunderstood. My family sees me as spacey, a dreamer, or lacking focus. I don't understand their real world. I don't make the right decisions. I dream too much. All those things were once things I admired about myself. As an adult the Alice mindset is certainly not an accepted path for most people. I must have missed out on some right of passage. As a child I was too distracted with the real world. They forget, though. They forget the reckless abandon I was born into. They forget the responsibility they left to me while they sorted their own lives. My mother, luckily she found someone who pretends to be responsible. He taught her how to pretend, too. My father, he never made it out of the rabbit hole. In a way, I admire him more for being stuck in Wonderland. It is more admirable than those who've never been.
I should practice being responsible. I should give the Hatter a kiss on the cheek and wave farewell to my Wonderland friends. Now I think that maybe reckless abandon and matters of the heart should never mix. You think after all the 18th century feminist literature I've read that I would have known that already. More than likely it's simply a lack of the experience with the heart that blinds me. Either way, your reckless abandonment of my heart, of my life, and of me has taught me great lessons. I've learned that I have the ability to keep loving even without the return, which makes me believe I am my maker's daughter. I've also learned how precious this life is and the people in it. I've learned to see things the way I saw them before. I missed myself so much. I am once again seeing things for the first time--if that's possible.
...Of course it is.
"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast" (White Queen, Through the Looking Glass).
Inspiration: "I'm not calling you a liar"- Florence and the Machine
Muse: My Reckless Abandon
