Home

I dusted off my keyboard today. My need to write beckoned me like an old lover. Once, I thrived in the arms of my lover. It was a place I found myself. Now, the tap of the keys is awkward, almost alien.

I know that with each touch of the keys, I will become more familiar with that lover again. Old feelings and new will wash over me. Life will unfold and eventually, it will feel like coming home again.

Coming home. I've been acquainted with that feeling a lot lately. Only, it feels so different every time I do. I visited my folks this last weekend. Coming home to them means feeling warm and welcome, free to relax and enjoy myself. They push and they prod. They love and tend to me. They give of themselves and ask if I need more.

I visited my best friend too. Coming home to her means no judgement. I tell her everything, even the things I have trouble telling myself. She will never be ashamed of me. She will lend an ear, an arm, a shoulder whenever I ask it. She knows without doubt that she has the same of me.

I visited the ghost that haunts my past as well. Oh, Lord! I don't know how to explain this one. Comfort and turmoil, longing and fulfillment. Time does not heal all wounds, only changes the nature of the pain. I am not me when I'm with him. I am not me without him. I can't move forward and I can't go back. I told myself I was there to burn bridges, but the truth of it is, bridge or no bridge, I will find my way back to him again and again.

After the weekend was done, I came home to Handsome. I was so hopeful, so devastated. I want things to work between us, and I don't. This past year with him has been so strange. He is my friend and my confidant, but there's something missing and I can't quite place my finger on it. I know it has nothing to do with my past. The past has no place in the future other than as a lesson to live by. No, it's more complicated than that. There's this space between us that can't be breached, not by word or deed. And I'm so lost right now.

Truth be told, if I could figure out what was wrong with us, I wouldn't look back at the past with such longing. But the space is there and growing wider each day. We don't touch any more. We don't connect on that primitive level. I know that he tries so hard to. I want to. I try. But I feel so disconnected from him. He feels it too. It's the elephant in the room that we'll never discuss.

I look at my screen now, at that damn blinking cursor, and I look around the place I now call home. They both still feel the same to me, familiar and awkward all at the same time. And I wonder, will I ever feel whole again?