When One Door Closes ...

Few doors have been slammed on me. To be honest, I'm usually the one doing the slamming, and with good reason. I am continuously amazed at the shit guys have managed to pull. From men who cheat to men who only want sex if it's in a public hot tub, I have shut doors faster than I would on a Jehovah's Witness with a bacon cheeseburger working door-to-door for the GOP. Today, I got a door in the face; but, this is not what you're probably thinking.

The mornings are still hard, full of deals that I make with myself to pry me out of bed and into an uncertain day. Today was especially arduous. As I dizzily made my way toward and then out of the bathroom, I caught my face between the stubborn wall and the sharp edge of the door. Adding insult to injury, I was struck on a spot with a zit that's supposed to make me feel younger. All I felt was awake and aware.

Sometimes it takes slamming one's face into reality in order to wake the fuck up. Ironically, I used the same analogy with Daniel this Saturday night. After another fight about how we're going nowhere at a time when I really gotsta be going somewhere soon, he wondered if I still wanted to be in this relationship. Offended, I considered his question carefully. Well, do I? After all he continues to do? After all he hasn't done?

I explained that my recent experiences have been eerily similar to being on the subway. Humor me: We're all traveling at the same life-threatening speed, all of us: passengers, drivers, and train. But, the second the train stops moving, everyone remains flying forward. Grasping for bars and apologetically onto fellow passengers, we too attempt to stop moving, lest we slam our busy brains into the wall.

Love, for better or for worse, is like the experience of the passenger on the speeding train (the train I would call "reality") taking her far and threatening to displace anything in its path. But, the moment that reality sets in, the lover is still flying forward, out of sync with the reality train on which she rides. If the lover doesn't catch on with the rest of reality, she will hit her head on the wall of the car.

While I know the harm that Daniel has caused, I don't yet have a grip. I'm still feeling for him even though he may not even want to continue the relationship. If we remember correctly, the picture that he painted to everyone in his pathetic on-line world not more than two months ago was one of a relationship that was already dead. Without a firm grasp on reality, I'm flying toward a wall much like the door that mauled me this morning.

To be hit. It can hurt, disorient, and even leave a scar. To be oblivious. It can comfort, accompany, and guard. While I refuse to do battle with any more doors, I'm at a place where I must choose those through which I will enter and those that I will shut for good. Swinging on a hinge with this bruise is just no longer an option.