I'm awakened by my dog barking quietly at distant thunder; wrestled from the peace of dreams back to a reality I despise. My bed is empty save the dog I shared with my first love, the wife of my youth. The life we shared is as distant as the inaudible thunder of a storm passed by. The only evidence it existed is the wreckage left behind.
Here come the tears again. They don't belong to her. They belong to another. I try and pretend they aren't there, that everything is getting better. I try and have a facade that everything is okay. Truth is I'm lonely. Extremely lonely. My friends seem close but they're really far away. I don't have an intimate bond with them. I don't think I ever will. I would lay my life down for them. They might do the same for me. But they will never truly know me. They can't. They already share that bond with their spouses.
Lonely. Tired. Awake. Sad. Headache has crept in to join my heartache. Time moves slow for me. There will not be a second escape to dreamland tonight.
I ache for that which I had but a taste of. Months that felt like seconds. Someone who could know the real me. A second chance at love. Not convenience. Not lust. Not selfishness. But real true love. The kind that only God creates. Intimacy in the likeness of my relationship with Him. I want her to know me like He does. I want her to need me like I need Him. I want her to lay it all on the line, to take a chance on me.
So I wait. And I cry. I lose sleep. Concentration and focus escape me. My only defenses against this heartache are prayer and writing. Tonight I needed them both and still I cry. I am unable and unwilling to give up on her. She is too special. She just might be worth every tear-filled sleepless night. Though I may never find out I will wait for her as long as I am able. I fear my strength is nearly gone.
Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe the months we had were merely seconds spent in fantasy. As time ticks by my grasp on its reality slips away. Soon it will be like distant thunder, its memory dissipating as the sound of a storm moving further and further away.
