Saying Goodbye

It is 3:55am as I sit here staring at this blank page with more in my head than I can get to come out of my fingertips at this keyboard. It’s as if the thoughts are swirling in my brain faster than I can articulate in written form. I’ll do my best to be coherent but I make no promises.

Last night, I said goodbye. I said goodbye to a person that has been in my life on and off for the past two years. Someone I spent some time with, although not a lot; someone who knew me, but not well; someone who for some reason has had a profound effect on how I feel about myself, my life and my abilities. It’s been a test: a test of strength, of desire and of willingness. It’s been a lesson in its truest sense: something that has come and gone, bringing with it pain and pleasure, giving me the chance to evaluate over and over again its purpose for showing up in my life. It’s been a period of reflection, of clarity and ultimately life-shaping decisions.

I closed the door on a roller coaster of a relationship with a past lover. After it’s all said and done, it is embarrassing to admit the amount of time I’ve allowed these thoughts to penetrate my mind but in the end, I am grateful for it. And while suffering through the ins and outs in silence from him, I’ve learned that it wasn’t me. It wasn’t him. It just wasn’t.

My dear friend and I always talk about how “the heart wants what it wants.” How it’s never convenient, and also not always right. I’ve found myself in more “not right” predicaments than I care to admit and it makes me crazy. Why does love have to be so hard? It’s like this wonderful thing when two people come together and equally give to each other. But time and time again, at least in my world, that experience tends to be one-sided. Sometimes from me, sometimes towards me. Why is it so damn hard to find that missing puzzle piece?

I’m glad it’s not as difficult for others as it appears to be for me, otherwise we’d all be screwed. So in the meantime, I watch from afar the happiness around me. I delight in this ambiguous, far-fetched notion of love and repeat to myself when I see people together, “see, there’s someone for everyone.”

So today, I release the past. I release the person I once was, two years ago, optimistic and excitable at something new, something that felt different. It’s beauty was disguised by two unaware souls traveling through this world, each with its own list of traumas, finding solace in each other, if only for a moment. It was what it was. It will be what it will be. But I’m happy to move on and make room for something new to enter. Deleting the two-year long text string that I’ve been holding on to all this time was liberating. If nothing else, the memory on my phone has been freed. And I like to think my soul has been freed too.

Sweet dreams, world.

XO Michelle