The trouble with life is that sometimes, despite your most valiant attempts to discern the inner conundrums, no matter how many pieces of advice you get from your friends the ‘sure bet’ is never the one that you want, it’s the one that came to you in the first place. The one who talked to you, played with you, protected you. The one who stole your heart and never really gave it back. One who you never thought that you’d see again, the missing friend that will never really be back.
You see, that boy does not exist. He is perfected in memory, and memories of ones loved are always tainted by the rose lens of liking. That man will always be perfect, although I know that the reality was far different. The memory danced with me, he caught me when I fell, he dreamed my dreams, he saw my thoughts, the memory took all of my pain and dashed it, hid it in a wall where no one would think to look. Pain does not make for pleasant rememberings, nor do goodbyes make for a good tale to tell.
Sometimes goodbye is the most painful word one can hear, but to not hear it, that is the worst. To not hear good bye is to mean that there is hope that he will return to you someday. There is the irrational and illogical dream that despite all evidence to the contrary he still holds you in his heart. There is the sad realization that every morning your hopes are brought up only to be torn apart as another day passes.
You miss him terribly, knowing that you hurt him as much as he hurt you. You can deal with your pain, but the thought that you caused another’s pain, the thought that you ripped out his heart makes you want to dig yourself into the deepest hole that you can imagine and thrust yourself down into it.
And then you do. You make yourself believe that the only way that you’ll ever be happy again is to see him smile, to know that despite your worst efforts he can still live life, he can still love something, he can still exist. You cry because of his pain, you celebrate because of his triumphs, and you watch from afar, keeping in the back of your mind the reminder that that part of your life is gone. No matter how hard you try you cannot erase the pseudo farewell from your heart. You don’t believe it, but you must, because despite your imaginations, despite your hopes, despite anything that your foolish, lovesick imaginings can conjure he is gone. That is the sure way to say goodbye. To look at the past and remember. . . that he wasn’t perfect, that dreams aren’t reality, and with that knowledge you can move on with life at last knowing that you tried your hardest, despite the failures. You then look at the past and realize the end of one story is merely the beginning of another.
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