Remembering the Star(dust)

Remember the good... remember the stars and the stardust... and be happy for both.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop on Memorial Day remembering things from the past. I'm sitting in a coffee shop truly saddened that the past has gotten so far away from that. I'm sitting in a coffee shop working on the path towards a future... unsure of what it may be or who may be in it.

A memory of the one called Stars is present in a closing response of an email from what feels like another world ago.

Please be the stars and not just stardust.
 

I had called him Stars before that. The stardust comment was referring to a quote from the book The Alchemist, which I had mentioned to him several times through our off and on tenure: "If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return.” 
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Thank you for the good memories Jena. 

Thank you for the lessons I needed to learn that I may never have known without you.

Yours
Something,
Muse

The word something had been the replacement of the word love for us... although not a full replacement per say. The word "something" was so much more. It was a feeling. It was far beyond.. stars. Muse was the name he called me. It was the name I have used for my business and for projects over the years. It was a very important word just as something. The word yours also meant.. something... to us as we both seemed to view things as where no one belonged to one another but chose to give oneself fully to another through vulnerabilities.

You will always be

The walks and long talks.

A sunlit afternoon and Ice cream.

Holding a tangent for days at time.

A hoodie and the best hug ever. I am sure of that. 

Sleep belt and Spaceballs snuggle.

No one else will be called Muse.

See you someday.

It took two years for our paths to cross. He'd sent me three messages before it finally got to me. And, as I mentioned, it may very well not be anything where we cross paths again. He is going one way and I am going another. I am truly saddened by everything. All I had ever wanted was for this path to be healing and wonderful for the both of us. I had thought so much differently in those quiet moments wrapped in a hoodie where I truly believed that I had finally found my other person. 

Was I was wrong? Was I was so so wrong and I'd ignored the signs? Perhaps there was a reason why our paths never crossed all those years. Perhaps the near misses were not without cause.

Perhaps

Perhaps

Perhaps

But life happened the way it did. It happened for a reason even if he doesn't like to think so. It happened even if I don't necessarily agree or think so.

And even now I just feel so much how I want nothing for him but happiness. I want him to find a peace within himself. I want him to hopefully gain insight into his own things.  I know he and I likely will never see things the same way. In hindsight, I thought we had in many ways but was proven that it was quite different. So so much different.

There are memories of me in different windows.

Memories of a person that he fell in love with.

Memories that I fell in love with.

Memories that suitors before him and then some have fallen in love with. I'd started to question my own memories and ability to recollect things properly. It had been damaging. It was beyond the normal form of questioning and evaluating. It was debilitating. He'd tell me that those things were not in fact true. That those memories were not actually me.

Those memories are still me.

Regardless of the paths and things that have happened.

I'm still here buried underneath the rubble.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop the day after I was told to fear my own voice. I'm sitting in a coffee shop working on a path which allows my voice to shine as it always should be. I'm sitting in a coffee shop nervous that this post will be used to further make me feel bad for using my voice.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop the day after being held captive in fear terrorized for wanting nothing more than calm and peaceful interactions. I'm sitting and remembering the moments all around me.  Of the path of this Star and the joy and sadness of finding and encountering both Stars and stardust.

Stars once wrote me:

"Let it go. Don't feel like is loss. Feel free of me. Truly relieved you are free of me for a while. You don't want the silly back and forth of arguing and feeling like I'm making you a bad guy like you say I am.  Just relax and know you are free of my observation and what a relief that is while you are growing and becoming new without any feeling you needs to please me or meet my demands as you felt I was controlling you. Now when you do things they can be because they make you happy to do so."

It hurts to be hurt so much by the person that I thought I was able to connect with the most. It's sad to fear and love at the same time. How could someone I loved so much also be the source of some of the most pain I've ever experienced in my life? Of someone insisting to not want to be "influenced" or invited at ideas of how to feel yet who regularly did that to me time and time again...

But alas, both stars and stardust are necessary for the journey. I think it might be time to... dust off my copy of the Alchemist again and reread as I walk down this path and heal. I don't know if I'll ever meet the him he used to be someday again or if he will ever see me as the Muse he once did... but either way, I'm forever thankful for this somber day of the beauty of a path of star... something... of what.. I'm not quite sure of just yet but am thankful just the same.