I can't believe you did that to me

I was pacing in the atrium tonight after the 6 started, staring at the double glass doors as though I could will K to somehow show up and walk through them, she wouldn't and didn't, when Tatiana called on my cell.

I met her for Chinese about twenty minutes later and I'm sure she noticed I wasn't all there (even forgot to turn off my phone after placing it on top of the table ... just in case). But I'm glad I got to see her and because, selfishly, it gave me an hour to decompress with a dear friend.

Things left over from the weekend still sloshed around undigested behind my eyeballs ... almost all of them centered on friends, acquaintances, buds, confidants, soul-mates or whatever, relationships, relatives, almost-fiances, girlfriends and all the rest ... that either dropped out of sight, stopped returning calls or had otherwise gone suddenly MIA with no explanation.

And how much not knowing why stings.

It just doesn't sting, it doesn't just hurt. The abrupt loss is a tearing away that leaves bruises and a sore, tender spot where affection, fondness and I really like knowing and spending time with you used to be that can ache months, even years, after the wound should already have healed.

It leaves you wondering Am I really that bad of a person that I deserve being treated that way? How could you do that to me?

---
Picturing an imaginary chance to tell that person I'm sorry for whatever I did and will do anything I can to ... Please just tell me how only seems to reenforce the sense of loss and helplessness, because no one's there to notice how much and how sincerely we mean it ... least of all the person we most wish could somehow hear us.

The same person we wish we could see grin and say in return, Yeah me too. Let's just start over ... and see what happens this time.

Then after another day, another week or another month is gone without a word, e-mail or text message the wound swells into an ugly scab from suspicion, jealousy and mistrust ... quietly hardening with hate and boiling rage.

I hate what you did. How could you do that to me? Really this time I mean it ... I hate you.

---
This morning at the 9:15 only one person came to mind to write down on my plank. I kept staring at the name I'd written because I was surprised, no, I was shocked, because not a single other name came to mind. Not even one.

And it wasn't at all who I was expecting.

It took seeing her name between my fingers, staring back at me in my own chicken-scratch handwriting, to make me realize how much hurt was attached to it.

As though I'd lowered my bucket into the pity well and pulled up a 55-gallon drum instead. I hadn't realized how much, and how deeply, the hurt had been affecting me ... and how much the weight was dragging me down.

But the time had come to cut the rope, and let the weight fall free.

--
Tonight I wondered if my name had been on any of the thousands of broken planks left at the altar. I hoped not; I hoped I'd never caused anyone so much hurt that my name was the one that had left bruises, stained and seemed impossible to forgive.

But I know it isn't true. Two-story houses in six different states have probably been built from planks with my name stamped across them in bold red letters, as the exclusive manufacturer. I realized I'd want to know ... and be grabbed by the shoulders and shaken half silly.

So I'd have the chance to grin and say in return, Yeah, me too. Why don't we start over ... and try 77 more times?