Better Than Before

Eternal Recurrence

The music featured on this video is Blame it on Me by Alana Davis.


I remember a conversation he and I had after he told me the story of his ex-girlfriend. "Do you trust me?" I asked, turing my upper torso toward him on the uncomfortable futon. It was a little after 4 a.m. and the movie we were watching had just finished. Sometimes I wonder if we give our past relationships too much credit. We attribute our present behavior to something awful that was done to us. So as soon as someone treats us badly, we lose all authority over ourselves? It makes us free to treat other people the exact same way that damaged us in the first place and remain very nearly blameless while we leave the tab with the invisible culprit who initiated the cycle.

"Uh..." he paused and was silent while an angel passed overhead. "Sort of."

"Okay," I whispered patiently and turned back the way I was, allowing him to spoon me, his stomach pressed into my back.

"The only reason I say 'sort of' is because all that's happened with my ex." He inhaled deeply and held his lungs tight for a few moments. I could feel the swell of his chest against my shoulder blades, then the deflation as he slowly released the him-scented CO2 into the atmosphere.

I turned back toward him and said, "I understand. I want you to know I would never purposefully hurt you," then I repeated myself with more conviction, "I would never hurt you with intention."

He sighed, "I know" and pressed his dry lips against my cheek.

I turned onto my back, straightening my legs and crossing my ankles. He adjusted his body so his arm still served as comforter to the nape of my neck and he could share my view of the dark ceiling. We lay that way breathing for a little while before I spoke, "I just wish it were possible for us to love with complete abandon, you know?"

"Yeah," he whispered, waiting for me to complete my thought.

"I mean, we give our hearts away, hoping that who we give them to will be gentle but something always happens and they drop them. So then what?"

He was silent, his breath quiet.

"We pick up the pieces and put it back together. But you can still see the cracks. It's never going to be exactly the same as it was. It's dented and scathed. But maybe..." I paused.

"What?" he reached.

I closed my eyes. "Maybe you're better than you were before your heart was damaged. Because at least you know that your heart does what it's supposed to do. At least you know that it works. It breaks, it hurts, it loves again. It works properly."

I waited for my words to bounce off the ceiling into his ear. He shuffled a little into a more thoughtful position, his arms still around me but his musings to himself. I opened my eyes at his movement and glanced over at his face. His eyes were wide and his lips freshly licked.

Finally he said breathily, "I've never thought of it that way." We fell asleep.