I took a walk on the beach alone this morning. I have only been twice now, because I was gone for the weekend. My sis went with me last time. It seemed I had some emotional processing to do, when I got there.

It was low tide. My head kept echoing “Low Tie…..” Which was what S always called it, from his days fishing.

I had a hard time silencing his voice in my head. I took pictures, of waves breaking on the sand bars. Of the waves breaking on the shore, leaving shells, broken sand dollars, pieces of coral and coquina. I took this picture, and also a video, which I can’t seem to get to transfer here..

I kept wanting to send the video to him, with the sound of the waves breaking, and just say, “Lo Tie….” He would have appreciated it I think. At least for a moment, before he deleted it.

I walked along the dunes, remembering last March, when I was there. We had broken up, because of the prison whore. I had been seeing Addison. S was working all his magic on me, while I was gone, to take me back from Addie. I was walking on the beach, I was talking to him, I was falling so in love with him again, missing him so much. He was sweet, contrite, he wanted me. There was no her, there was nothing but he and I. Addie….loved me, like crazy. But I never stopped loving S.

We planned for S to come over the night after I got back. To talk, to see if we could repair the damage that had been done by the prison whore episode. But in my head, I already knew who it was that I wanted to be with.

Addison was picking me up at the airport at midnight. He had my car, there was no way around it. He expected to spend the night with me. “Please don’t sleep with him Deb.” “I won’t have sex, S. He’ll just sleep there, it’s going to be late.” “Even sleeping together is intimate….”

I knew it was, I knew that it wasn’t fair to Addie to sleep with him when my head and heart were with S.  I really didn’t want to either.  I knew I had to tell him on the ride home from the airport. I was dreading breaking that sweet man’s heart.

God that was a hard  beach walk. I guess there were a few ghosts here anyway, even though he never came here with me.

Anyway, I was overcome with the desire to communicate with him, and of course. I mean how could I remember all that and not want to just say hi. Just let him know that I was thinking kindly of him after all that ugliness last week.

I tried to send him the video, just as I’d imagined.

I say tried, because it couldn’t be delivered. The cell reception here was not good enough.

I let it go. I just acknowledged, it wasn’t supposed to go.

And I thought, “thank you universe, for watching out for me.” Because no good would have come from sending it, from opening the communication back up. None.

I said to myself, well, last year you were here, falling in love with him all over again. This year you are here, letting him go again.

The breeze blew gently, blew my hair off my neck, the sun shone on my face, the sand was soft, the sky was blue, and I turned to walk back to the bank of cubbies that are there to hold your flip-flops when you walk on the sand.

By the time I got there, I was just so grateful it didn’t get sent. I didn’t want it sent. I would have been horrified with myself if it had gone through. All it would have done, even if there was not response, or even a positive one, would have been to reconnect all the connections I have tried so hard to break. I would have undone weeks, months worth of work.

I had thought, while doing it, that I might unblock his phone. I hadn’t decided yet. When I got my flip-flops back, I sat on the bench nearby to dust the sand off my feet. I looked at my phone, and deleted the text to him. I put my flip-flops on and began the walk home, 2 blocks. Grateful, ever so grateful, that the universe stopped me from doing something that would have damaged my psyche again, and set me back so far. That would have in the end caused me more pain that I already have around that man.

I was able to remember his callousness. The way he now tried to negate memories like that one.  His last advice, “why don’t you focus on finding Mr. right?” As if, as if, you can just stop loving someone you love and replace him with another. He of all people should know. It was a stupid thing for him to say. “I’m sorry” might have been better. I know what a shit he is. I know how unreliable, how self-absorbed, how disingenuous he is. I know he uses people, and makes the wrong decisions all the time. I know all his bad traits.

Just, today, I remembered “low tie” and “high tie” and those moments when he wouldn’t be any of that shitty stuff, and how he could make me feel like he loved me. Those times when the light I always saw would break through, and blind me from its pure beauty.

But I made it through, by the grace of God, back to myself, back to my path, away from that pain. Away from all the craziness, the chaos, the mixed signals, the drama. Away from him and the darkness he spread into my life.

I made it.