Awake

April 18, 2011 - Awake

I lay awake in the darken room.  ‘Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.’  The sound of the clock is echoing throughout the room into my head.  My eyes feel restless but my mind stays awake with the sound of the clock.  ‘Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.’  I tell myself to sleep.  I try to force myself to sleep.  But there’s something that keeps me awake.  My mind wanders as the rest of my body tries to convince it to sleep.  It’s distracted.  By something.  By somewhere.  By someone.  I open my eyes to see the time.  3 in the morning it reads.  I can still here the ‘tick tock, tick tock.’  But the sound is slower.  ‘Tick….tock….tick….tock.’  The sound tick tocks with the beating of my heart.  I start counting the heartbeats.  One, two, three, four, five but I lose count because my mind is somewhere else.  I tell myself to just go to sleep.  I force my eyes to close but I feel them opening and closing, opening and closing.  I flip the pillow to the cooler side hoping that it’ll help.  But it doesn’t help.  I switch to the other side of the bed.  I change my pillow.  I lay on my back.  I put a pillow underneath my legs.  I lay in child’s pose.  I lay on my stomach.  I take off my shirt.  I do everything I know possible to make myself sleep.  But I still lay there in the bed awake listening to the ticking of the clock.

There’s a distraction.  There’s something that’s bothering me.  Maybe I just feel that I need to escape.  Just for a little bit.  I lay there and my mind keeps thinking.  I think of the things that I’m missing back home.  The things that have happened.  But I know life back home moves on with or without me because now my life is here in Ukraine.  But I want to reach out and touch somebody one last time.  To hold that somebody just for a little bit.  I feel the want of home, the want of you.  Just for a second, for a minute, for an hour, for a day.  Just to hold you once again.  To tell you that ‘I love you.’  Just one more time.  To kiss you one last time.  I want to have one more moment just so I can cherish that moment forever.  I replay the last days together in my mind.  I replay the first time we met, the first time we went out on a date, the first time we kissed.  I replay those moments to see if I did everything possible to have a full relationship.  I try to remember if I told you enough times that I thought you were beautiful, or if I told you enough times that you make me happy.  But I still feel that I could have told you more.  I try to remember if I told you ‘I love you’ enough.  But I could have told you one more time.  I try and think if we cherished each moment with each other.  We did but I wish we had more moments.  I wish we had one more day together.  Maybe one more week.  Or even a month.  But then that would just prolong the inevitable.  Although it was only a couple of months it was a great couple of months.  Love isn’t based on the length of the relationship but the relationship itself.  So would it have been easier if I had never met you?  And the answer is no.  Would it have been better if we just ended it before I left?  I don’t think so.  The sound of the clock ticking is still echoing through the room and I look at the time and now it’s 4:30 in the morning. 

I replay the conversation we had earlier that day.  We say the same thing.  We felt the same way. I already felt we were hanging on by a string.  That I could no longer grasp onto what we had.  It was slipping through both our hands and neither of us wanted to let go.  But it was time to let go, we had to let go.  It was for the best.   So I smiled, you laughed, we said thanks for the times we had.  I told you how wonderful you were and you told me how awesome I am.  I wanted to cry but I know this is what is supposed to happen.  So I feel my eyes water up but I end up smiling because I am reminded of the happiness you brought me. We respect each other as people and for what impact we had on each other’s lives.  We try to stay on the phone as long as we can.  I don’t want to let go yet.  But I know the time is coming soon.  My heart feels warmth with the sound of your voice.  I wish I could’ve just recorded our conversation so it can remind me that this is the right thing to do.  And with our last good bye, with our last I miss you, and our last ‘I love you’, I felt the last part of the string that is connecting us slip through my fingertips.  And tonight I lay in bed missing you more than I did yesterday.  Maybe it’s because the idea that tomorrow is unknown for us and that I will go down my path and you your own path.  And now the string that I was once holding onto I can no longer hold.  So I try to hang on to my yesterday as much as I can.  I clasp my hands together as if we were holding one another’s hands.  My eyes finally close in its effort of sleep.  And my dream is of you. Your face is intricately etched into my thoughts.  Your smile so vivid.  Your laughter like music.  Just thinking of you makes me feel home again.   And I feel at ease.  And for what seemed like only a second I feel a moment of comfort.  ‘Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.’  I am awaken by the sound of the clock.  It is now 6 in the morning.  The room no longer darkened by the night but lit up by the morning sun.  I wake with a smile with the thought of you.  I look outside and feel the warmth of the sun or what feels like what used to be the warmth of you.  I lay in bed for a few minutes just looking out the window thinking of you.  And although we may be going our separate paths I am thankful for the part of the path we shared together.  And so I say thank you.  Thank you for being who you are, thank you for the time we had, and thank you for helping me be the person I want to be.