Cabot O’Callaghan finds the woman of his dreams, and he’s depressed as hell about it.
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You can see the summit but you can’t reach it
It’s the last piece of the puzzle but you just can’t make it fit
Doctor says you’re cured but you still feel the pain
Aspirations in the clouds but your hopes go down the drain
Howard Jones – No One Is To Blame
I’m in Mississippi.
It’s green here. Everything and everywhere. Trees buzz as if a thousand electric weed trimmers perch on their branches. Rain only falls like a river. Fleeting lightning dispels the night utterly. Thunder rolls, then booms, then cracks in the ear. The air is hot wetness.
I could have denied this experience, avoided the obvious consequential pain.
What if you found your matching unicorn? The one who compliments you the most? What if that discovery was the cruelest of revelations?
We both are missing the tip of the middle finger on our right hand, you see. She has the name of the street I grew up on, you see. She’s a writer, sees and paints the world in the same hues and tones as I. She’s scarred in the same places, aching for the same needs. She bleeds. She bleeds and bleeds from the same wounds, unwilling to deny their existence.
I wrote a haiku once.
What if love’s moment
Lasted but a single day
Would you not fear it?
It’s sickeningly romantic. A fool’s errand. I didn’t think it prophetic.
The population in the greater Sacramento region is over 2.5 million people. So many souls. It’s where I live. Surely my unicorn could be one of those. It should be. Love’s circumstances should be justly bound by laws set by romantic fate. But the only choice is to love or not love, fate only gives the opportunity. Why must it be this way? Why must my life be punctuated with painful ironies that heal as they rip me wide open?
May the southern white god curse the Internet.
I wonder if this is the only way I can tolerate such a connection. A coward’s unconscious strategy? The ancient guard of my heart gives no comforting counsel. The starving prisoner begs to be fed. The rationalist laughs judgmentally.
I am troubled.
“You know we will get burned,” I tell her. It’s too late for this warning. I’m already here. We kiss hard, like jaundiced vampires while sitting on her back porch as the cicadas sing. She nods, her tiger’s eye-colored stare acknowledging what is already beyond the event horizon. We lie to ourselves that living in the present will postpone the inevitable. We call it crazy, and then agree to stop calling it that. Then we call it crazy again. Then any remaining rationales strip away with our clothes. Now a different fire burns, burns, burns as we lay our defenseless hearts on the bed.
She has words tattooed on inside of her left forearm.
The ink,
The page,
The poem
The words lay over and around older scars carved into her skin. I understand.
We are moored to different lands by children we adore. We smile anyway until bittersweet tears fall at the cosmic irony of it all. A few days are left to wake up next to each other.
I have to stop writing this. I have to go lay my head in her lap.
Photo—Casey Muir-Taylor/Flickr
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I was so heartbroken and don’t know what to do with myself but after 3 days of contacting Dr_Mack@yahoo. com, my lover came back to me, this is unbelievable
Finally, someone I can relate too. It is cosmic irony. I am 48. He is 44. We met on an infidelity blog, both of us suffering from selfish cheating spouses, both of us ending over 20 year marriages because of it. Both of us faithful through our marraiges. Somehow we found each other out of 10,000 members… joking about how much we both needed sex. So, we started talking… and talking, and talking… every day for four months before he finally got on a plane and came to visit. That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship, that defies all… Read more »
Thank you so much for writing this – I found my soulmate 9 months ago – one of the most joyous experiences of both of our lives but we live 100 miles apart. We make the most of it but both our hearts ache to be together on a more permanent secure basis and for the same reasons as you this cannot be right now. I particularly struggle with the cycle of separation we inevitably experience living in different parts of the country and pray for the strength to endure this as the love is so worth it. Your article… Read more »
I too found her, much too late. She was leaving a dreadful marriage as I was and am still trapped in mine. We have all the same interests and desires yet I couldn’t find my way from my loveless marriage to join her. We had 3 great years but she had to move on, as we broke each other’s hearts. To my dying day this will be my greatest regret
Love is often found at a distance, always has been so, even before the internet made it so easy. It makes it harder, but also somehow sweeter, more appreciated. It certainly makes you more sure, because if they’re not right it’s easy to give up when they’re so far, no-one would blame you.
I hope you find a way, sooner rather than later.
The comments go to prove that in this, you are not alone. At least yours, it seems, is only separated by distance. There are, sincerely, other far more difficult obstacles that one could have to overcome, and some that can’t be hurdled at all. And, yes, all you’re left with are fond and somewhat forlorn memories.
I guess I don’t understand. This was very poetic, very well written. However (and maybe this is because I’m just not smart or artistic enough to get the point), I don’t get it. You never explained why you are sad or why you can’t be together? Do you live apart? Am I really this stupid?
you are smart enough, it is just that the article is not very clear on this albeit it is poetic. i didn’t understand what happened either, then i went back to the first sentence and saw that the writer was in a different state, so they obviously live apart. but i think we sometimes meet soul mates that we are not meant to live with (because i think we have more than one soulmate) so if they can’t get together for whatever reasons for a long term relationship, i think you just accept it as it is and look for… Read more »
The information is there, in almost breadcrumb form. You have to find the pieces and follow the trail. They live in different places, physically distant, and can’t move because they have children they love in the places where they live.
I assume that custody arrangements prohibit either of them moving with their children (they certainly do for me, my long distance love has come to me – he’s now a four hour drive from his kids, but that is liveable, and he was further than that before).
Wow, Caleb. Thanks for revealing I’m not odd. I’m an American and he is Jordanian. We spent a year together jointly on research of all things to help build relationships between Americans and Arabs. Neither of us were looking, but culture/worlds different. Soul to soul connections irregardless of milieu hatching us. I was game to move there but scared out of his mind…you really have to be strong in yourself to live and love as Solemate too if you are soulmates. No contact for 1.5 years but hi soul impact is still powerful.. and I try to not think about… Read more »
This left me with a lump in my throat. Your story, the Haiku, the Howard Jones quote, all so sad and so beautiful. I wish for you to both find a way as that would give us all hope.
Wow. I am without words. You have plucked from my brain a long hidden, sneaky, suspicion that I might only meet my soulmate for the last few moments of my life, not walk with him as I have envisioned since my earliest childhood. I know he is out there. Your story and your words pluck at my heart. The trueness of experience resonate like someone crinkling a candy wrapper in a silent cathedral, ricocheting off of the walls, floor and celling. My heart goes out to you and your soulmate. I have found one, and he was not ready, we… Read more »
Beautiful. What happens when you find your soul mate, but your soul mate does not acknowledge you as one? And yes, curious if you managed to manage the distance issue?
No, distance can’t be bridged, at least not in the foreseeable future. The only thing to do is accept what is and be grateful.
That is a near impossible feat.
And I’m dubious of the term soulmate. Love is a conscious act and it must be maintained. I found someone extremely compatible, but to love, or not, is still a choice. Love is not static, its dynamic.
At least my take.
I’ve had a change of heart, I’m afraid. She is my soulmate. I think I didn’t want to admit it because I keen it would be that much more painful to not be with her. But it’s true.
Beautiful. I needed this so much right now.
This really resonated with me. I, too, recently had an eerily similar experience with an individual I believed to be my soulmate. Your piece struck a chord deep inside of me and I thank you for so eloquently articulating the pain that accompanies falling in love with someone who is (almost) unreachable. My hope is that you were able to resolve the issue of distance to be with this person.
Just beautiful writing…..
Thanks, Jordan.
I found her three times but she never found me.
I think you’re brilliant, or maybe I’m just seeing new places inside myself.
And both can be true.
If I had more time I’d shorten to Haiku.
Thanks for the kind words. I hope the second is truer. That is a writer’s greatest wish.