Rivers

I asked this question of myself maybe a million times before. How do I go on?

Even before you left, it has been at the back of my mind. My feelings were perhaps a portent of your leaving. Somehow, despite all the happiness together, I knew what we had was too good to last.

You had one foot out the door all this time. I did everything, gave it all I got and still I wasn’t able to rouse you from your half-heartedness.

The dread spread through my heart like a nameless fear, one I was afraid of.

Yet here I am, ready to pick up the pieces and start anew.

I found a lot of my fears were unfounded. Life goes on without you. The trees grew and the flowers bloomed and the river continues to flow. Life goes on.

At least, that’s what I tell myself. I thought I would die if you left. I didn’t, but I did. Part of me died when you left yet a part of me still lives. It is maddening to be trapped in this limbo of a half life, going through the motions of living but not really wanting to.

I couldn’t imagine how much space you needed to be your own person until you left.

I could say the same of me. Things are changing so fast and yet there are some that remain the same.

What scares me most is that this wouldn’t change, this sorrow, this mourning, this sense of loss. And I would be changing, moving on to new relationships, new friendships, and new interests and still be dead inside.

I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to be the living dead.

This is the question: do I want to be all dead, or all alive?

The answer may seem obvious as I contemplate this bottle of 120 Valiums in my hand. That I should be considering it is a dead giveaway, pun intended.

But.

I just want respite, a few days of not thinking about the disaster that was us.
I want to be Sleeping Beauty in that I want to sleep until the right Prince finds me. But life is not a fairy tale. God is not a Brother Grimm.

So .

I won’t sleep. I choose to be all alive. I will throw away your memories and never look back. Because nobody deserves to die after every chapter of their life ends. I will live through to my happy ending. I’ll show you.

I’ll show you.