You can look them straight in the eye, memorize the curve of the jaw, and the almost-there mark of sun and laughing and frowning, and just. Not know. Who they are, what went wrong, what you did and where it'll end.
It's okay. I've come to realize the people you love - selfishly, unguardedly - aren't going to be there. More often than not, you wake up one day and realize it's been a long time since you shared their path, since you ever knew them.
I've come to realize that sometimes, no matter how much you love them, it's just no good to try, the day comes when everything they were to you, is outshadowed by the toll time takes, by the choices made, by the differences you tried to never see.
It hurts, letting go of that. Thinking so long, trying, trailing behind to just stay in the game, to matter, for one second more. Appreciating, valuing, loving the history of the person, but knowing you don't share their road, maybe never have, maybe always being a case of weaseling your way into a space never built for you. Saying thank you, saying it mattered to me, it meant something to me. To me, even if you can't see the familiar shape of it anymore, nothing but a dim, murky outline of what you knew, for so long, to be a part of you.
Saying thank you. Saying good bye.
It's an end, and it hurts. When it happened to me, the final time, the time I knew that I had held onto scraps and half-truths and pain and anger too long, I really felt like dying. I sat, empty of tears, in the bathroom and thought this is why people kill themselves. What do I do, what do I do. Because I had wanted a better ending for something I had held so dear, I thought maybe I had earned it. I had tried to be a good person, fair, compassionate. Just. I thought ignoring what caused me pain, and being loyal, would be enough. It wasn't, and I realize now it would never have been.
It hurts like a sore tooth, like an ill used heart. Aching and vague and always there, because I will always want what I fooled myself into thinking I had, what I've never actually had.
It's what you live. And it's what you learn.
