Living with a Phantom Limb

They say that when people first lose a limb, they can still feel it. It still hurts, they still try to use it. They call it having a "Phantom Limb”.

I think that this is what losing a person is like. It’s like having a phantom limb.

You beckon them over to "come see this!", you come home at the end of the day to tell them about how much you hate going to work, you pick up the phone to call them when you're happy, sad, mad, or somewhere in between. Until you realize that they're not there.

And each time you realize it, it hurts just as bad as it did the first time, all over again.

Only an arm, I could lose. It's the people I care about the most that I can't live without.

When someone you love disappears, it's like the light goes dim, and you're in the shadows. You try to do what people tell you: put one foot in front of the other; keep looking up; give yourself over to the seconds and minutes and hours...

But always there's that glimmer of light --- that way of living you once knew --- sort of faded and smoky like the crescent moon on a winter's night when the air is full of ice and clouds, but still there, hanging just over your head.

Leaving? Well, that was easy.

It was everything else that was so damn hard.

Stumbling a little on my way out

You don't let people in. It's hard for you, and once you do, you don't want to let them go, and when they screw up, you're like, “Why did you do that to me? I gave you my feelings. I did everything for you; and you screwed me over.”

It felt complicated in the way that all breakups feel complicated when you're embroiled in them. While in cruel actuality, most are really quite simple. And it goes something like this: one person falls out of love --- or simply realizes that he was never really in love in the first place, wishing he could take back those words, that promise from the heart.

.

And then there’s pain.

But you gradually get over the pain. Well, it doesn't go away, not for a long time, but it becomes easier to live with. One morning you wake up and he's not the first thing on your mind. And then a few months down the line you realize you've made it through half the day without thinking of him.

Sometimes it takes months, sometimes, years, but eventually you reach a point when you only think about them occasionally. You manage to do this because you don't see them, you don't hear about them, you try not to think about them. And then you bump into them walking down the street, or someone unexpected mentions their name... and the memories come flooding back.

But even memories also become less painful in time. I can talk about my previous relationships now without really feeling anything.

But I'd rather now.

If you know what I mean.