Last week brought the sudden unwelcomed urge to cry. I thought of you then as if smelling a familiar scent that conjures a memory. Nostalgia has blurred my recollection and my thoughts of you are softened with gradual absence. I remember you in the most selective way, and we go on, staying friends, or at least some version of something platonic. And then I remember. The reason behind the familiar sting of a tear stained face. A version of you that I knew so well, yet somehow dismissed in light of our separation. The version I chose to leave behind. And so have you it seems.
We converse lightly, with history in our eyes. I wonder if you can still see the part of me you managed to destroy, lying dormant somewhere beneath our casual conversation about the weather . Your apologies then only offered condolences to a certain spirit I must work hard to regain. It’s still lost somewhere beneath the rubble. You mentioned her again in a light I wonder if you ever mentioned me in when I wasn’t around. You brag humbly about your new found happiness, and lessons learned in the past five years. I listen, interpreting as a teacher would to her pupil, and take appropriate credit for your sudden appreciation and respect. I am talking the the man I always hoped you would be for me. That hindsight tends to be 20/20. But I learned some things from you along the way, before all was said and done. The things you taught me were needed, not wanted. I never knew my breaking point before you. You pushed me in ways I never want to be pushed again, but I needed to feel it. I needed to know I could survive it.
I think about you now and wonder. I wonder if she’ll ever see your potential for rage. I wonder if you will ever scream her name and hold back your shaking hand professing how much you would like to drag it across her crying face. I wonder if you will ever look at her in a way that makes her shudder and crumble to the floor. I wonder if she will ever doubt your love for her. I wonder if you’ll hold her down, preventing her escape or threaten the very core of her soul. I wonder if you will mock her when she cries. I wonder if she will ever break and become unrecognizable to herself under the weight of your harsh words and steady, almost constant absence. Did I get the worst of you all that time? Did I dedicate myself fully and faithfully for five years just to teach you how to show your best to someone else? I suppose that’s what friends are for.
I am not in regret or remorse for you. We are sharing ourselves, new and improved with new people that are better for us. We are experiencing feelings we never felt with each other. This makes me feel equally sad and accomplished. To be your friend now is a sort of pacifier to the reality that someday, things will be different. Someday I won’t know you at all. By that time, I can’t say for sure if I will even be sad about it. Someday we will look back and laugh at the audacity that five years seemed like a long time. That night we collided our glasses together and said cheers to nothing. I say cheers to us and every mistake we ever made with each other. Every lesson learned. I couldn’t have asked for a happier ending with you.