"Leave love bleeding in my hands..."

“I love you,” she finally says.

She physically hurts from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. She aches deep down inside, in a place she never knew existed.

“I love you,” she finally says. “I’m standing out here at the edge of your life, waiting for you, and I have no idea if that’s what you want.”

“Don’t wait for me,” he replies

“I want to wait for you,” she whispers.

“Don’t wait for me. I want you to have a happy life.”

“I love you. I want to wait for just a little while.”

“Don’t wait for me. I don’t love you,” he says.

And inside of her, her heart breaks…shattered into a million little pieces. Tears well up into her eyes and silently trickle down her face as her head rested upon his chest. She walked down this road of her own free will, her eyes wide open and knowing full well that she might end up in this place. This crying place.

It’s taken 49 years, 11 months for her to feel heartbreak like this. Almost like heartbreak over the death of someone she loves, only different and in some ways far more difficult, since he still exists in the real world, just not in her world in the way she wants him to be. She aches for him and for the potential that she knows he’s walking away from.

She said she is living her new life with no regrets and that she would never regret loving him.

He said that she was braver than he.

Silently she cried while lying next to her daughter, whose apartment she stayed at that night. She wanted to go home so that she could lie in her own bed and sob, hoping that if she did so, she might rid herself of some of this heart break.

He is not to blame for her tears. He was never anything but upfront about where he was in his life and his situation. She thought if she loved him enough, she could change that. She was wrong and yet she loves him nonetheless.

She loves him in spite of the fact that he does not love her.

She wonders how long it will be before she runs out of tears. She feels stupid being almost 50 and finding herself truly loving someone for the very first time in her life….. and now having to cry about him. But, living a life with no regrets means putting yourself in situations where you risk having your heart broken into a million pieces. She has no way to protect her heart….it’s always right out there for everyone to see.

She can’t imagine her life without him in it……..and she can’t imagine never being able to love him the way she wants to love him….

There’s a song on her iPod she cried while listening to on the train tonight. (Silently of course, so as not to appear to be a total nut job….in the past 24 hours she’s gotten very good a crying silently.) The song is by Fuel and the title is Hemorrhage (In My Hands), one line in particular speaks to her right now.

“Leave love bleeding in my hands….”

This is exactly how she feels as she stands here at the edge of his life, love...bleeding in her hands.