So this is my goodbye to you

You came by just in time, and left just as quickly, without saying goodbye.

I walked home to my dorm from class in the November rain, feeling an all-consuming sense of abandonment, too numb to let myself cry. I had poured my body and soul into an infatuation that seemed to disappear overnight, and with it every ounce of hope in love and happy endings that I had started quietly building within. I felt suffocated by words — words I never got to say, words I wish I never mustered the courage to say, words that offered this person the key to the darkest, ugliest places in my soul, never to be used, never to be fully appreciated.

It’s been over a year and a half since the last time I saw you. I haven’t heard a word from you since then, and have wanted to tell you so much of what has happened. I chopped off my super long hair. I endured my share of frustrated relationships, and walked away in the hopes of something better, more fulfilling. I found the hobbies that I have always wanted, blogging and photography. I have gained new friends and joined an organisation. I party now, not the usual prim and proper girl anymore, but someone who can have fun but knows her limits too very well.

I still think about you, remember you, wonder how you are, miss you. I don’t miss our potential chemistry — my appreciation for you ran deeper than any of that. I miss that mysterious human being who, out of all the guys I met, had made my heart really skip a beat. Perhaps most importantly, I think about how I never got to say goodbye.

Part of me wishes I could talk to you, one last time, just to share each other’s triumphs, failures, love, heartache, self-destruction, salvation. The better part of me has acknowledged, slowly but surely, that you will never give me that one final conversation, that one bookend to a vital chapter in my life. Closure.

Letting go. As a hopeless romantic, I have found this to be my greatest struggle, the hardest thing for me to do. But I must. For my life, my love, my sobriety.

So, this is my goodbye to you. I want to thank you, from the bottom of my soul, for all that you have made me feel in the time I have known you, and for what I have learned in our time apart. This is my gift of closure, for you and for me. This is my reaching out, wishing you well, never forgetting, always forgiving, hoping that wherever you are, this finds you in a better place.

Maybe this will come to you, just in time.

{Credits to Rob Borchert, 2012}