I miss Amy during these holidays; I can remember meeting her Mom in the cold December months, and visiting her dad's house in snowy New England. I can imagine her with all her family, and I can remember their quirks and warmpth and the good food and the good humor. They are nice folks. Funny to imagine how I figure into their conversation now. Maybe I don't - they ask why we broke up, Amy explains that she moved out and I work too much. My family is more focused on my career and laughs a bit at my looking for some love online.
Amy has invited me over a few times, mentioning sex. I was happy to be at this party, and visiting her afterwards seemed natural. We slept together without doing much more than cuddling. Somehow there's so much junk piled up in my brain that I can't find my way through to the young man who laid like a mummy in her Mills college bed trying to do the right thing in spite of his rigid prick.
Instead it's much easier to withdraw into myself and keep things dry and clear mostly.
Though when we're standing up and we hug each other, usually goodbye, it's a very nice feeling, and sometimes a cheek to cheek kiss can inspire some driving pleasant physical memories. I can feel myself making it difficult to relate to her, because I'm not engaging the physical. For young love, sex can serve as a deep affirmation for profound feelings. Still there's nothing cheaper than revisiting a beautiful sexual temple with someone you have loved deeply and finding it empty and even poorly architected. I would rather reject some longings we might have for sex, more than I would care to have a bad or even forgettable sexual experience with her. Where I used to believe that we would always have lively lovely luscious intercourse, we eventually slowed down, and I can imagine that sex today would be tough, with my over-active mind.
Of course the memories, momentos and photographs I keep stumbling over make this difficult. She was the center of my heart for many years. It's tragic like a death in the family or the loss of a limb, and it's myself who is dead. At the same time I can't fake the physical. Groping her and sliding inside for some ready sex seems wrong without the deep longing and comfort that used to accompany our time together. Somehow I'm not terribly relaxed when I'm with her. And she's not with me it seems. When I go visit her, people are smoking cigarettes, which drives me insane. When she visits me, it's the place we used to live in, with all her old bills and some mutual possessions, which is like some kind of strange abandoned city we used to live in but is steadily being gentrified by the media bachelor elite. Less "Release Print" more "Computer Gaming World."
Amy used to cut my hair. I've grown very shaggy recently. During my reading the Truman Biography I've decided to trim my hair rather short. I thought of some new female acquaintances who I could ask to cut my hair. That almost seemed like too much intimacy too fast - Amy was the first girlfriend I let "style" me. So I've asked Judy instead.
So for the future, I don't know. My best hope is to return to a more lighthearted easygoing place with Amy, where we feel less betrayed by our own expectations and failures. Sometimes I think I have to talk to her and work through it that way, but it's difficult, heavy and painful sometimes. Sometimes it's just fine. But it's definitely easier to hurl myself into work and spend more time alone and maybe meet some new women and see if I can't replicate some of the same problems I've experienced with Amy.