Goodbye, Love

Tulip carnation bouquet

On our last day togeth­er she brought me a bou­quet of tulips and car­na­tions, and a Joe Hisaishi CD — a child­hood mem­o­ry of mine she ordered from Japan. I had men­tioned it in pass­ing on one of our walks as the only album I’ve been unable to find for down­load or pur­chase, and there it was, in my hands.

We watched Before Sunrise, and after­ward, we laid next to each oth­er on the couch, silent, unsure of what to say, because there was no com­fort to be had. Soon, I was kiss­ing the tears from her face, over and over again.

She asked what she was going to do with­out me. How long it was going to be before we saw each oth­er again. Whether a sim­ple phone call was allowed. I could say noth­ing, because I under­stood the neces­si­ty of it all.

So she said she was being reduced to an observ­er, and I grew cold and dis­tant. It was the first time I had con­sid­ered my own feel­ings, when I had felt reduced to much more than that, and she was­n’t mak­ing it any eas­i­er. With her lips on my neck and her hand through my hair, she com­fort­ed me in turn, and our pas­sion took hold of us one last time.

Before she left, I hugged her, felt her tears grow cold on my shoul­der, and kissed her once more on the cheek. Thank you, she said.

My heart has been filled with a calm sad­ness ever since. A strug­gle between the pain of being away from her, and know­ing that it’s for the best. That we would be stronger, and more sta­ble when it was all over.

In the days since, I’ve remem­bered the things I want­ed to say to her before she left my back porch, run­ning to car with­out look­ing back before the emo­tion could over­whelm her. Things that did­n’t come to my head because I was too focused on keep­ing myself togeth­er.

Don’t stop cre­at­ing. Take care of your­self. I love you.

5 comments

  1. Why did­n’t you fol­low her?

    • For her, I would have fol­lowed her to the ends of the earth, but some­times, it does­n’t mean any­thing in the end.

  2. ::sniff:: This is SO much worse than those Korean soaps. Much.

    Hope space helps.

    • Hahahah…those are infa­mous for being the most point­less­ly depress­ing dra­mas around.

  3. I know! They’re almost hilar­i­ous they’re so weepy. I have only liked a few and shut off the rest, but Korean TV is inevitable in my sit­u­a­tion.

    But I was­n’t down­play­ing your sit­u­a­tion, not at all. Whereas those dra­mas are always about two peo­ple not com­mu­ni­cat­ing or not con­nect­ing, your sit­u­a­tion hurts so much specif­i­cal­ly because it HAD real men­tal con­nec­tion.

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