The Urge

For years, I fought the urge.  It’s tugging, it’s pulling.

Years ago, I had given into the urge, and it was wonderful for a while.  Actually, it was wonderful for five years.  I reveled in it, it consumed me, it nurtured me even.

Then towards the end of five years, it soured.  The choices I had made began to stack up against me, turning what was once wonderful into something bitter and angry.  The yelling began.

Eventually, it ended.  The screaming, the shouting, the fighting.  It all ended suddenly, so suddenly I even missed it.  Fortunately, time moves on.

Slowly I learned to fight the urge.  At first it was a struggle.  But slowly, I became it’s master.  Loneliness wasn’t an enemy – it was a friend that kept me secure.  Every time the urge began to rear it’s head, I battled it back successfully.

Until the day I saw her face.  It had been 18 years since the last time I saw her bright eyes and dark hair.  High school lovers, we had spent three years together, though we never dated.  Love wasn’t in our hearts – just lust.  At least, until that moment I saw her.

My life flashed back.  I had fought the urge back then because I had hated it.  I saw what it did to people – the yelling the screaming, the anger, and the fighting.  But deep down, I saw what I refused to see before.  The love.  And I was far from alone in that – she felt it too.

We made cautious moves towards each other, haltingly.   Each of us had our ghosts, our moments when the urge had resulted in us getting hurt.  But slowly, carefully, we let it build within each of us.

There wasn’t a day that passed that we didn’t say I love you to each other.  The urge was fulfilled – I was no longer alone.

But there’s a reason why the past should often stay the past.  In this case, it was both of our pasts.  Her past continued to show it’s self, and my past required certain obligations.  We continued to try for a while – the urge not only draws when your alone, but magnetizes two people, keeping them together.

Eventually I had to endure the pain.  I had to overcome the urge, for the sake of my obligations.  I did it slowly, instead of a single yank, tricking myself to feel the urge was still fulfilled.  But the end result was the same – we both hurt because of the urge.

For a while the urge was all consuming.  But I began battling it down, piece by piece.  Slowly, even more slowly than how her and I had joined, I placed it back in it’s cage where it belonged.  The urge just leads to pain, as had been proved over and over.

It’s been years now since I’ve felt it’s pull, but every day I live in terror of what pain it could bring me next time.  Those fears keep the urge in check.

——— Writing Notes ———-

Another character from the book I previously mentioned. Also vaguely based on reality from a couple of years back, though a lot of the emotion is heightened. This is the second of eight characters for the book – should be interesting to see how they end up intertwined someday when I get around to writing it