I Can Say Goodbye To You A Thousand Times, But I Still Don't Know How To Leave.

Six months ago, I messaged you.

Maybe you never saw it, or maybe you just couldn’t reply. You couldn’t fall back in like I couldn’t when you reached out all those years ago.

Maybe we’ll chase each other around the world, through timezones and years, catching up when we can, for the rest of our lives.

Or maybe we can never fall back in.

I don’t know how to cope. I don’t know how to heal or forget or move on.

I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the first time today. I don’t really watch movies, so I avoided it for a long time, but I knew I would love it.

It’s devastating.

When I think about you, I wish I could forget. We had one intense year. Every minute we spent together, it was just one year. One year of secrets, of competing, of falling asleep on the phone. Just one year of games and arguments and half given truths. If it was gone, I would be okay.

I spent 5 years pretending you didn’t happen. Waving away any brief thought. A quick smile to a memory before pushing it down, until they were all pushed down and nothing left. I didn’t bring you up in conversations anymore. I didn’t check the weather where you were. I deleted our pictures, made new accounts to avoid our old conversations. I turned the radio off when that song came on. I unlearned habits.

When did I stop subtracting three hours every time I looked at a clock?

I would give everything to go back and love you all over again.

Last year, I heard songs that reminded me of you, but I played them on repeat instead of skipping them. I went back to the games we played together. I started to see you in everything. You come up in conversations. You’re always on my mind.

🧸

Have you ever dreamed of someone you’ve never met, but your soul swears they belong to you?

—Sylvia Plath, Letter to Aurelia Plath, 4th May 1962

Hitachi Seaside Park, Ibaraki, Hitachinaka, Japan by Aco

the ache of nostalgia