Saying Goodbye Doesn’t End With Walking Away
Saying goodbye doesn’t end with walking away…
The echo of your voice doesn’t stop because you’re not on the other side of the phone, or softly saying goodnight with your head on the pillow next to me. My hands haven’t stopped reaching for yours in the car driving down the street or walking the sunset around the block just because they’re not there to grab anymore. The grocery isles aren’t more spacious just because you’re not there laughing and dancing through them with me.
Saying goodbye doesn’t end with you walking away in the way that I can’t make the memories stop playing in my head. I can’t unhear you whisper in my ear that you’ll love me forever just like I can’t shower away the hurt of you telling me it wasn’t enough. I can’t unsee your smile that used to light up my world, the way I can’t take back the sight of you loosing your light in me. Saying goodbye, is a choice I have to make every day because even still the love I have for you is boundless. I retrace every step in my journey with you from the night at the coffee shop to the rainy day I drove away from your mom’s house, where I drove away from you for the last time after so many times of you leaving. The times you used to look at me with so much adoration, so much love, and so much conviction that I was your person — the love you had been waiting for all your life.
I still walk beside you that cold December day along the lake talking in excitement about our future wrapped up in each other and the life we were building. I still lay beside you on the mountain top in the hot summer sun staring infinity out into the wilderness with admiration and peace, the way I looked into your heart, the way you reached into mine. I still taste the pastries you’d surprise me with after work and sometimes I still wake up to the taste of your lips before the sun could rise breaking free from the comforter and our entanglement to be a warmer part of your morning before the cold of the day ahead. I replay nights in on the couch the way t.v episodes recycle in a program — ordering in and cuddled up. My mind vacations to the weekends in cabins, trips, and mini adventures. My eyes swell with tears when I sit with you in that church pew at your grandfather’s funeral and my heart still aches at never knowing what to do. I’ll never know what the right thing to do is.
I write — I write to you the way we wrote our sticky notes to each other and hid them to be found in places and times least expected. I haven’t stopped reaching for the gummy bears and sour worms yet. I’ve almost walked out of the store with lavender flowers to rush home to you, or accidently made two cups of coffee on Saturday morning. I wonder how you are if you’ve found what you’re looking for but in the same way that when everyone else has seen the ending to a movie you haven’t gotten to yet — I don’t really want to know. God — the universe- whatever only knows how much I loved you; how much I love you and I will always love you but in the same way that saying goodbye doesn’t end with walking away I choose to say goodbye everyday because you didn’t choose to love me and I walk away from you, but towards better. A piece of me says goodbye to you everyday and someday I won’t have to because I’ll be far enough away, but today I start with saying Goodbye.
