The one I find hardest to let go of, in a way.
Luke. Luke doesn't exist. I feel very strange even talking about Luke, but in a way, he's as real as anyone else. Luke is the creation of my mind, when things were worst, last fall and into the winter.
I made Luke up, the person who I wish existed in my life. The person I would have chosen if I had valued myself more when I was younger, for whom I would have waited if I had been able to understand who I was and what I needed, rather than scrambling desperately for the security of any relationship.
Let me tell you about Luke. He's quite tall and dark blond, and he has a beard most of the time. He's not picture handsome, but he has a quirky charm. He's the kind of guy who wears jeans and cords and Icelandic sweaters and soft shirts. And he has a smile that can light up a room. He's a professor, maybe a biologist, some kind of science. He likes to be outdoors, and he likes to run and play games, but he's not a serious athlete. He loves to read, and he's happy lying in bed together reading. He likes to play games, the old-fashioned kind, cards and board games. Maybe he sings or plays an instrument. He knows how to fix things. He shares household chores. He's reliable and kind and free of too much shit from the past. He has a nice family, some brothers and sisters, who all like each other and like to do things together. He's interested in what I like to do, and supportive of it. And he's kind. And affectionate. And not particularly touchy. He likes to travel, and we go together to conferences and just on vacations. He loves to be with me, but he's ok on his own, too. He's smart, and he has a quick sense of humor, loves a good pun. He thinks about other people, especially me and the kids.
My perfect guy, in my head anyway. There's a bunch of Freudian things there, especially since there are some pretty strong resemblances to the father of my best friend, who was kind of the perfect father figure of my childhood. And no one is really that perfect, although that's not what I want him to be. Just a type of person. He would have his flaws, and we would argue and so forth, but no one would sulk. We would remember that we loved each other even when we were angry.
Anyway, when things were worst, I made up Luke in my head. Sometimes I wrote to him. I talked to him a lot, in the car, alone in bed at night. I imagined how my day would be if Luke were here. And it made me feel better, in the way that imagining the time with John made me feel better. It took me out of how awful things were, and it gave me a strange kind of peace that I could find in no other way. He became real to me.
I'd like to think that Luke is real. That he's out there somewhere waiting for me. But I don't really think so. I don't know whether I'll ever have a real relationship again. I'd like to think that I would, but I don't think that my task right now is to be looking for it. I sometimes think that my karmic path is to learn how to live without a relationship. And so I feel that I have to let Luke go, too.
Luke, you may be imaginary, but how I feel about you isn't. I don't know what it's about, really... a refuge, more than anything else, but it's not going to help me learn how to be a strong and independent woman. So I have to send you back into the ether from which I created you. It makes me surprisingly sad to let you go. It feels like a real and complete loss. But I am breaking up with you, too. Not because I don't love you, in a way, but because you are no longer good for me.
And now I have to figure out how to be just me.
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