my father once said to me. "if you hold your puppy to tight you will squeeze the life out of it". back then i did not understand, because i did not have a puppy and even though i wanted one. he never thought i was ready for it. " the risk is, if you let it go. let it breathe. see the world, it might run off" he continued. i still did not understand. the most crucial part and i must say, the one that most applied to my life was "give it the choice, you cant make it stay.". sometimes i find myself repeating these words after him in my mind. sometimes i cry to the echoing sound that seems to cloud my mind. "you cant make it stay"
my name is Lucy, and when my puppy came i couldn't have known it was him, because it came in the form of a man i loved so dearly. James, James White. People used to say I'll end up with him, that he and i were meant to be. i loved him. i would have done anything to keep him. i used to dream that he would be the one to father my children and that i would one day walk down the isle, my brother holding my hand and he would be at the end of the alter. many times we had broken up. and every time i found myself apologizing and waiting for him. sometimes we'd go months in a break up and id wait for him. i loved him and i thought i couldn't have no-one but him. my heart had become so programmed for him that even when i told myself no more waiting, my subconscious would still wait.
James and i had been together for a little over 5 years. he was the kind of man that every girl would have loved to marry. he was loving and present. i never had to worry about him with other women. sometimes i think we had been through it all, that we'd be able to survive anything, and sometimes that dream would be snatched from me and id be left with doubt. in all his loving and presence, James made me feel overwhelmed. especially when we were not together. And although i loved him, it felt as though he was turning me into someone else, someone that, although i recognized, was not me. He was turning me into a younger, less happy image of himself. i had learnt to be like him. to think like him, to be him and somewhere along the way i disappeared, so much so that all that was left of me was him. i was so consumed in his idea of love that i had forgotten my own. Love was supposed to be liberating,
it took me a year to realize that i was not happy anymore. And he had mentioned to me in a fight that he wasn't happy. i knew he was happy. i knew i would never be good enough for him. Not because i'm a terrible human being. in fact, i like to think i'm a good person, but because James was not looking for a girl like me. i knew i wasn't that girl, but the idea of letting go and moving on terrified me. All my hopes and dreams of being in a family, happy were with him and changing them scared me. I loved James, i still do, And i believe that somewhere in his heart, James loved me too.
letting go is not easy. I have come to believe that destiny is created, not certain. I could have chosen to marry James, squeeze my puppy, but i let him go, set him free so that someday, he may be happy, with someone new. A perfect owner for my puppy. "You cant make him stay" my daddy had said, and he was right, you can never make anyone stay. no matter how much you love them, how much you want them to stay. I would have loved for James to stay, but deep down i knew he would have loved for me to change. Love changes some things in you, that is a fact,love lets you be, love liberates you, love gives you a headache sometimes, sometimes it makes you cry, love lets you grow with time, love lets you find your path, but love doesn't completely transform you. it leaves space for your true nature to exist. One night in the depth of a heated fight, James said to me "i'm not happy lately", i hesitated, i cried, but in the end i replied "the truth is, you are not happy with me" oh, i remember how painful it felt, but i did not stop "if you are so unhappy, get up, walk away, let go" and a few days later he did. i'm not waiting anymore, my heart is not waiting. subconsciously, instead of waiting, i'm fixing myself. "you cant make him stay" i still hear my father's echoing voice in my head. "if you hold your puppy too close, you will squeeze the life out of him"
