I've been standing here my whole life
Everything I've seen twice
Now it's time I realized
It's spinning back around now
On this road I'm crawlin'
Save me cause I'm fallin'
Now I can't seem to breathe right
Cause I keep runnin
Runnin from my heart
~ Adam Lambert, Runnin'
Running to stand still
I realized that much like a terrified rabbit frozen before the predator descends, I'd been standing still my whole life, bracing, ready to flee the ever-present danger. The illusion of flight was made possible by my circumstances. I'd left home at the formative age of eight and never felt I belonged under that roof again.
If I ever belonged to begin with.
School and college are in and of themselves transitory and I relaxed somewhat, safe in the knowledge that movement was in the very near future. Friends were like garments, the older the more worn and eventually shed when they served no further use. Lovers - of which I had precisely two prior to Ivo - were slightly more useful in function but equally disposable.
I remember thinking - when Ivo said to me, "Tim, I want us to be together permanently. I don't think you've understood that." - how can anything be permanent? And why would anyone want that?
I remember thinking that shortly before fleeing for my life.
Yet how I cherished the idea of infinite togetherness with Isabel in those few days I was with her. I imagined us a working couple, me in some job - what does one do with an BA in English Literature? - her, teaching. We'd be poor but somehow things would work out, somehow mundane things like money and rent wouldn't matter. Somehow we'd shine in spite of our troubles. I spent the two weeks leading up to the island fantasizing about our permanent life together. It's as if, once Ivo planted the seed, I couldn't get it out of my head. And Isabel, married, transitory, was a safe place for me to practice. That was the real attraction.
I'd only mistaken it for love.