Finally, Farewell

It is with a sigh of shuddering relief that I finally was able to scroll past the newest picture on that infamous social media site and not receive another arrow in my very sore heart. And in that moment, I felt triumph.

Triumph that I made it. I made it past the rough seas of heartache, made it through the rockiness of trapped anger and stifled sobs in the night. The early hours of the morning spent curled in a ball staring into the past-- they were done. And I could finally, finally smile again-- and mean it. I had reached the shore. The heartbreak was over.

This heartbreak had begun just before my 20th birthday. Yes, dear readers, another heartache. Under different circumstances, with a different boy, and only a similar ending. A scared little girl who had been hurt in the past, I shied away from a small blessing; a blessing which didn't pursue to even wonder why. The laughter I had shared with this blessing died, the small moments in which I truly felt happy again had ended, and I was left in total darkness. My birthday was spent nursing sobbing eyes in the care of a loving sister. But it wasn't over yet. It escalated into madness, lies were shared and believed, impossible things became reality, and there I was. Thrown over, abandoned, ever on the losing side of things.

And I smiled. It's always easy to put on a face. It saves other people trouble if you don't complain and whine and cry in front of them. So I smiled. I smiled and gave my blessing on a new relationship that was too close to me; I smiled and nodded when happy tidings were shared. I smiled so much I became sick of it, and became a stranger to myself and my family-- people who had done nothing but support me. A dark person, full of anger and resentment, bitterness and secret tears. I became fearful of myself, but I couldn't control it. I let everything eat at me, tortured myself by swallowing every piece of news I learned about this blessing-gone-wrong and the new relationship that had formed so rapidly. Why did I do this? I didn't have a proper answer. Perhaps I still don't. My heart has been shattered, newly mended and shattered again by someone else. And I swallowed every last arrow. Because I want to make everyone happy. And everyone was just that-- happy. Everyone but me. But my soul. I struggled, I smiled, I cried, I cursed myself for letting me hurt so much, so badly. I believed I deserved it, to hurt, because I had let go of him one moment in time. I had shied away because I was scared of hurting again. And things changed. Things changed all around me, but I remained the same. Stuck in the mud of what could have been, until one morning-- very recently, I woke up... And smiled.

A real smile. An easy smile that felt good. I still feel the pang, but it doesn't sting as much. I'm able to laugh at the little silliness of life, at the memories I now cherish regardless. And I released the blessing with thanks to God for sending it my way. The laughs, the smiles, the words that told me for a short time that I meant something to someone. That I was worth more than I think I am. The realization that I deserve as much as God has planned for me. And I feel as if it's going to be great.

Whether I find a sweet, caring soul to trade hearts with, or I go at life on my own, here's to the future. And finally, farewell to the past.

The Letter

"Hello Darling,

Goodness, it's been a while since we've talked. A while since I've set eyes on you. Since I've felt your hand in mine and we were just allowed to be. So long, it feels like a lifetime. Like we haven't even met.

Do you think of me often? And when you do, do you wonder what I'm doing? What is bothering me at a particular moment, if I let my mind wander possibly more than I should. Do you try to imagine my smile, how my laugh sounds, what makes me really excited. Just the little things that make me, me. Because I think about those things with you all the time. Simple things, little details that are lost in every day life. But are cherished when really thought about. Oh dear, how I miss you. Even if there's not quite a reason to. Not yet.

Do you stop to wonder if we pass each other every day? Like ships in the night, we offer each other little smiles and continue on our ways. Polite, and cordial, and perhaps we are even friends. After all, the world is full of so many people, and we have met so many already. Are you among the sea of faces that have already crossed by my eyes? And when will you become more than a flash? When will that magic moment be, when our eyes meet and everything else-- as they say, is history.

I don't wonder that so much. Although I miss you, and even though I want to know your name so I can say it over and over, that magic moment can take its time. Because you see, lovely, there are two people somewhere in the course of time. They're just meeting, laughing, talking. Being friends, perhaps. In the past or the future, we are there already. And there are two more people who are preparing for an evening, in fact many of them. Different, special, each one of them. Getting to know each other and laughing and holding hands. We're already there. And a ring, and a wedding, and a happy life full of love and all things hard and challenging but oh-so-worth it. Darling, you and me, we're already there. And there we are, laughing, talking, loving, living.

The future. It holds so much. Dreams, hopes, careers, goals, chances, little details that build into this beautiful picture. And we're both living it at this very moment. Together, but separate. We're already there. So here's to you, the future holder of my heart. I'll catch you on the other side, love. Until then, we'll always have those moments when we happen to think of each other at exactly the same time. And in that case, darling, we're already there.

Sincerely with love,
Your Future Someone."

Resolved Enough

I sat there staring right into space, tirelessly going through the list of countless things I do before bed to make my insomniatic mind calm down at least a little. I couldn't talk, my sister was gladly traversing the land between awake and sleeping. I didn't want to read, to listen to music. I didn't want to explore the strange world called YouTube. Most of all-- and this is when you know it's serious. I couldn't even convince myself to write. Nothing appealed to me, not even sleep. This was the beginning of the oncoming nightmare I always work so hard to avoid.

I hate nights like this. I've experienced them enough to know they never end well. In fact, it's worse than that. I fear them. Because after I finally relent and switch off the light. While I'm lying there beneath the thin shield of my blankets, my eyes shut tight in hopes it'll help anything. That's when it happens. My mind starts to wander. And there he is.

It's without fail for a few months now. This strange face that represents the past, cast with the dreamy orange glow that denotes the sense of rueful nostalgia. It's fascinating and frightening, expected yet completely unwelcome. These nights. The ones with little sleep and bursting mind with no fruitful thoughts. These nights I would've talked to him. Back before everything. So long ago now, it feels like a lifetime. So now he sits there, staring. As if waiting for me to break the news that no, I haven't invented time travel yet. And no, I will never see him again.

He's not real. Then again, he is. It's rather complicated. And it would take take too much time and pain to explain. But this boy, this silent soul who follows me everywhere... He's trapped in the past. A reflection of young days, spent laughing and gazing and running and playing. Of being special. He's still there making a little blond girl smile, despite the braces she hides. It's just for that reason that I can't speak to the boy. Because he's there. A few years back and happily innocent. And I'm here. With the broken pieces that are in his future.

And there's this man. This grown man who the boy doesn't know he'll be. This man who probably doesn't know how many oceans of tears belong to him. Tears that have sunk silently into the pillow while I beg God for sleep to rescue me. A man who didn't sew up the now-patchworked heart he probably doesn't know he shattered. He's real. And so am I. And so is everything else. Almost too real.

That one moment when the innocence was shattered. When the little girl ran away into the night and the boy hid himself in the past for safety. Sometimes I stand there apart from the two of us, relishing that moment right before it all turned black. Sometimes I'll catch sight of pictures I took that very night, or I'll find myself staring out of the window on car rides, remembering the smallest details of roads where we traveled. And I almost see those two little hearts, so dear and distant. Laughing together. Because life was simple then. Life was strawberries and coca-cola. Life was bits of string and quiet singing. Life was holding hands in a yellow mustang, all dolled up. Life was growing up. Together.

 In one of our last few conversations-- though I didn't realize it at the time-- we spoke of our strange story. We discussed what it would be called and what would be in it. Would it be a love story? A story of just that, growing up? Would it ever have a happy ending? That day, I promised myself that I would write it all down, from the very beginning when I spotted a teenage boy sitting on my living room couch, to the very end. The end that no one could guess would ever actually happen. Simply because it was so unexpected, so very real life it almost felt fake. And occasionally I will allow my childish mind to take over and make up scenarios in which I wake up from an awful nightmare and we two laugh about it together over coffee in that same ol' Starbucks. At that same table. I think about that place too. I've been in it a few times since, but it still feels like that cafe is stuck back in time. Where everything is safe.

"Oh, what a story we'd make," he had said. "How would it end?" I inquired, playing with the string on my wrist. And he looked at me, shrugged, and that smile I remembered for good. "That's the fun part. Nobody knows."

Nobody knows because it's the story of our lives. It could end a hundred years from now, or tomorrow. That's life. But our story-- oh that story. I could say it's all over, but that's just the thing. It's not. We never see each other anymore, we only talk in memories. But the ghosts are still following us. They guide our every actions, whether we know it or not. This boy, this man was there when we grew up. Those odd important years where everything seems so much worse than it is. We became adults together, joined the world together, suffered together but stuck together. For so long. Fate intervened but somehow I still feel like we are together, just in spirit. A shadow of each other following us because those experiences-- though painful and difficult for me to dwell on with dry eyes, were strange little tests to see how we'd grow. Like one road can branch off into several pathways, we are meant to choose our direction on this confusing journey. I chose and I kept walking, but perhaps I should've left the rear-view mirror behind.

I'm leaving this city in just a few days. I'm leaving the place in which I grew the most. I'm leaving ghosts behind, back roads behind, picnic tables, cafes, fields, swing-sets, everything. No matter how frightening that notion is, maybe it's just what I need. So my eyes don't rest on things that dig up my memories for me to go over for the countless time. Good memories laid atop horrible ones because I've tried to bury the demons. I'll be back to this town, if only for a little while. But perhaps every time I return, I'll be a little older, a little wiser, a little more free. I'm growing up. And that doesn't mean releasing the child in me. I'm learning who I am, where I belong. And I don't know how long that'll take. But I'm willing to wait, and willing to try.

I need to move on, it's so long overdue now. This'll be the hard chapter in the story that's mine, possibly one of many. But here's me, trying. This is the end, as well as a beginning.