Why Is It So Hard To Let You Go?

It’s hard to let someone go who you thought would never leave. It’s hard to say goodbye to the person who was supposed to be the one who made all of the other exits make sense. It’s hard to come to terms with it when you don’t quite understand why.

You see, it was like a divine spirit brought us together. When we touched, fireworks exploded within me and the rest of the world seemed to melt away, and at the same time rejoice, because when we were together it felt like everything aligned cosmically. There could be no greater perfection. I know you felt it too.

Being with you felt like getting my soul massaged. You ignited a heat in me I didn’t know existed.

I wish I could pinpoint where it went wrong. It was like you started to pull away right at the time when I was feeling safe, when I thought that we were good, when in the game of sink or swim, we were flying. You have your patterns and I have mine. While you pull away I cling for dear life, wondering how to be someone you can’t live without.

We did our best. We started off like two children playing in the sand, enamored with each little shell we found, as if we could only find such treasures with each other. Then in the blink of an eye, we aged beyond our years, the pressures of real life weighing us down until we were bruised and broken, reaching for a cane to keep us upright.

But there’s only so long you can try to make someone stay for. This isn’t a sport with winners and losers. We’re a team or we’re nothing, and I quickly found out that we were destined for the latter. I dangled from the edge of the cliff, holding on for dear life until finger-by-finger I lost my grip and tumbled down, bruised and broken from the fall.

And now the wings of the butterflies you gave me have turned to blades. Sharp, cutting me with every memory. Where there was once a radiating light is now a dark and ominous cloud hanging over my head, threatening at any moment to erupt in a storm.

I tempt it to. I yell at it to show me something. I can take it, I insist. Give me your best shot!

Then something happens that I didn’t see coming. Through the lightning and the thunder, the rain starts to cleanse me. I let it was hover and through me, my tears adding to the storm.

I’m coming clean.