She Breathed Life into a Tortured Soul

My favorite times of the day were those fleeting minutes I wasn’t enduring a lecture, working on a project, or drudging at work because I spent those moments in constant reverie, daydreaming about her.

Jennifer Marie Thompson’s debut in my life was subtle. Sure, there was an instant attraction, but considering her fate, an angelic choir and a beam of light shining from heaven would have been poignant. I didn’t know from the inconspicuous beginnings that she would become the one that would rekindle my belief in something I had long since given up on: love.

Right from the onset, I put up walls to protect my already damaged psyche. While I had been single for several years, heartache and hurt weren’t strangers. Years upon years of constant internal struggle about who I was, who I was becoming, and my self-worth took a toll on me. With every wall I raised, there was Jen breaking it down, climbing over it, doing everything she could to get to me. She challenged me to let go, to believe in her, to trust her with my heart.

What did I know of love? I had been in love before, a different kind of love under very different circumstances. I was venturing into uncharted territory this time around. I was bringing more experience, more wisdom to the plate than the sixteen year-old know-it-all from a decade before. This moment, this investment had higher stakes, more risk, but also the promise of more reward.

When I finally told her I loved her, she might’ve cried. The details of such a significant moment are something I will never again let slip my mind. She’d been waiting for me to say the words because she’d already fallen in love with me.

I didn’t deserve her. She might’ve been younger, but she had a wealth of experience to fill the pages of books. She was a driven, hard-working girl with the courage to pack up and move 3000 miles from home without much of a plan, other than to make it in California. And she almost moved back to New York.

We had just started dating when her friendship with the girl she moved out west with began to crumble. Her teaching gig at a school in Monterrey Park was about to conclude with the summer, and she didn’t have an idea of where she was going to live. I had already began developing feelings for her, but I wasn’t in any position to ask her to stay. I began dreading the passing of each day because it was one day closer to possibly saying goodbye to her forever. One afternoon I noticed her away message on AIM said: Looking at an APT in Rolling Hills. I was absolutely elated. Not onlywould she be staying in California, but she’d only be living a few miles away from me. It was fate, right?

Our chance convergence of completely different life paths seemed destined by fate. There were a myriad of elements that had to fall into place for that fateful night in July to happen, but there were some particular ones of significance. We met at our first softball game for the Scrubs, which was Scott’s (Jessica’s boyfriend) team. I was only on the team because one night after going to a Dodger game with Jessica, we met up with Scott and his friends at this dirty dive bar, Pats II, in Redondo Beach. It was my first time meeting Scott, and he invited me to play on his co-ed softball team on Thursday nights. Also on the team was Scott’s friend, Scott Rush. Rush was dating a girl from New York that he met through his sister who lived in Silver Lake. That girl, Jen Curci or “C” as we called her, met Rush’s sister through some distant relative who mentioned that C and her friend were looking for a temporary place to crash when they got to California. C’s friend was Jen, my Jen. She didn’t believe in God, but she believed that there had to be a greater cosmic power that brought us together.

The fateful quality of our love enveloped our emotions. We loved each other like characters written into a romantic screenplay. I never wasted a loving thought and quickly turned it to a loving expression no matter how corny and cheesy. She was my Wordsworthian inspiration of overflowing powerful emotion. She embodied the romantic cliches I used to imagine growing up. She was the leading lady in the romantic movies I lived vicariously through, and she was the face I saw when I closed my eyes and mouthed the words to love songs.

The best part was that she loved me more than anything. I had never felt more important, more central, more loved than I did with Jen. She filled me with an appetite for life, a life with her. She would chide my unhealthy diet because she wanted me to grow old with her, and I wanted to grow old with her. I spent days reminiscing about blissful memories, and nights were spent dreaming about better tomorrows. I cherished the feeling that I had someone to share tomorrow with, that I could count on sharing new memories to romanticize with someone special, someone I’d been dreaming of my entire life.

On Jen’s desk there’s a baby picture of her and older sister at Disneyland. Her sister is appropriately smiling at the camera, but Jen’s attention is diverted to the side where she’s pointing. We joked that I was at Disneyland that same day, and she was pointing at me off camera. Our love was meant to be since that random encounter at Disneyland in 1985.

I’m so flawed you could call me human. Sure, everyone has their faults, and I have copious amount of the blaring kind. I’m almost 29 and I’m still working on a bachelor’s degree. I’m living hand-to-mouth doing my best to help raise a tween-aged son. My non-belief in myself severely hampers my potential of which I’ve been told I have lots of, but unfortunately potential is merely an intangible measurement of unattained goals. I’m messy, irresponsible more than I should be, selfish, and indolent when I shouldn’t be. I was playing with house money the entire time Jen was enraptured with my charms with a three-year expiration date.

I have nothing to offer. The tangibles are limited, and all I have are the words to elucidate a promise. Those words grow to become meaningless over time. After less than a year, I wanted to marry her, but what held me back was my pitiful existence. She deserved better than what I brought to the table, I didn’t want her to struggle with me. If I had my life in order, I would’ve been in position to grasp a hold of the angel that breathed life into my tortured soul before she allowed her feelings to wither and wilt.

Jen was the greatest thing to ever happen to me. While I’m torn and shattered now, the past three years have been the best years of my life. She filled my life with love, and for that I will be forever grateful. She resurrected the emotion that once meant so much to me. I’m a better person today for loving and being loved by her, and all the heartache I feel permeating my entire being is insignificant compared to the euphoria I felt while basking in her love.

It felt like a three-year honeymoon period, and I can’t help but wonder if the dissipation of such an intensely burning love might have confused her into thinking that she falling out of it instead. I guess it’s been building for a while, and she’s a very good at pretending everything is okay.

The last time I saw her, she was naked in my bed. We had a fight the night before that spilled into the morning. We woke up early and had a conversation, and I thought we worked it out. We made love twice, and when I had to get up to get ready for the baseball tournament, she didn’t want me to leave her side. Had I known it would’ve been the last time I’d feel her soft skin against mine, I would have never left. I would’ve stayed all day holding her body close with her head tucked into my chest underneath my chin squeezing her closer until we breathed in unison. I would’ve kissed her cheeks thousands of times like I always did. I would’ve looked into her big enchanting hazel eyes into the depths of her soul and told her I loved her, and I would do anything for our love. But I didn’t. I got dressed and packed up the gear. On my way out the door I looked over to her and said bye. She motioned with her hand which caused me pause, so I walked back and sat next to her while she lay in bed.

“Is that it?” she asked unsatisfied with how informally I was about to leave.

“No. I loove you,” I whispered into her ear before kissing her lips and her cheek for good measure. “Will you be here when I get back?”

“No.”

I didn’t know she’d mean that in more ways than one. The last time I saw the love of my life, she was in her full glory wishing me to stay at her side. I might her bring a bag of belongings she left at my house, but then we’d have to say goodbye. I’d have to turn around and walk out of her life. My last memory of the love of my life will be of a cold face unresponsive to the yearning of my broken heart.