As I continue to grow, I think one of the hardest things for me to accept is that sometimes our goodbyes are better done silently. There will be people that you have to let go of and wish well without ever actually getting your goodbye, your closure. Even harder still is knowing when to trust that that’s the right approach.
I’ve always had such a hard time being silent, though. There’s an energy that builds up in me and I feel like I have to get it out. So here, months later than I wrote it, I’m ready to put my silent goodbye out there into the world.
Psychic
There are days I won’t put you into words out of fear I’ll somehow write you away.
As if the more I say your name, the faster my memories of you will fade.
There are days when you don’t pop into my head at all, and when I realize it I’m enraged.
I was so sure you would always take up residence there.
It’s like I got a little bit of excitement out of playing landlord,
giving special treatment to my favorite tenant.
I’ll never forget the day, you jokingly proposed the idea that I live in your rental property.
For months, I thought about the way you said that having a key would let you come inside whenever you want. We both know you weren’t talking about the apartment.
For months, that was the only thing I wanted.
I would sit on the bus, staring out the window on my way to class and with enough time you would wander right into my mind and start putting on a show.
Tears would well up in my eyes and I only ever wanted to tell you that you were my favorite place to go,
whether I was feeling sad, excited, scared, or on top of the world. Only you could make it better.
After dates, sometimes I think about the one you saved me from.
The time I met up with some guy at a bar across the street from my house and half an hour in I realized how badly this was going – oh God did I fuck up and I didn’t yet know how to stand up for myself
to say I wanted to leave so I excused myself, because I was always good at making excuses for myself.
I excused myself to the restroom, I sent you a text and you came to the rescue.
You brought me strawberries and I’ll be damned if I remember what smart-ass comment I fed to you, not yet knowing how to accept even the smallest of gestures – for the record, I’m still working on that one.
I do remember though, that you told me it was you trying to be romantic and I tore myself apart for weeks trying to understand what you could possibly mean.
The day I texted you in the uber on my way home from a date – so proud of myself for not having sex just because of the opportunity presented and as pathetic as that sounds, I knew that you would get it. You always seemed to get it.
So I asked you, practically begged you, to be at my apartment because turning him down did not mean that I didn’t want sex.
He was just more like the foreplay while you were the main act.
On the phone that night, you told me you thought I wasn’t dating. I said you’re right I wasn’t but you know how my mind changes.
Then you asked me, what I would say if you were to ask me out on a date, but we never found out.
Sometimes I would throw a fit over something silly because I didn’t really know how to tell you that this thing we were doing was eventually going to kill me.
There were days that I thought it would be better to die with you by my side than keep going without.
Call me crazy but that means there’s a day that you were driving me home, and every time I pass that section of the road I can still remember so vividly how badly I wanted to grab hold of the steering wheel and veer us into the wall.
I didn’t actually want to die. The truth is, that was one of the moments I was the most in love with my life.
I was so sure there’s no way I’d ever be that happy again but then I remembered that I’ve thought that more than once since I’ve met you, and it pulled me out of my head.
A little over four years into being too into you, one of my best friends asked me to go see a psychic with her.
The psychic told me that the relationship I was in could work out, I panicked.
But it wasn’t what was really meant for me –I panicked harder.
I jumped ship that day and swam like I was being chased by a shark but that’s not to say that there weren’t times that the waves pulled me back.
Despite making a decision that day that I would only accept the things that were for my very best,
it doesn’t make it any easier on the days like today when my mind wanders to possibilities that maybe enough has changed.
I think about how I told you that I wish we had only been friends and wonder if it’s truer than I knew.
I’ll never forget that after two years of you not being on top of me, I invited you back on and it’s been a struggle for me, most days since then to keep myself from doing it again.
You see, it broke my heart when you confided in me that you fuck often but it had been two years since you made love.
I did some quick calculations. Two years. Two years since we’ve fucked. Two years since we’ve made love.
I’ve accepted that maybe it’s finally time that I let you go but before I step away I just really need you to know – I wish she would love you better.
I wish you knew that you deserved to be loved better.
You deserve to be loved, for exactly who you are, forever.
Much love, until next time.
Madeline May I... 