Of Endings: One More Goodbye

 

I thank the pandemic for somehow making me feel that everything is transactional. Start, end, done. Forward. Repeat. But there are days and nights when the loop stops for a little while.

It's been what? Close to two months. You were always the first person to whom I send a message once I wake up. The first person I want to tell stories about how my day went and ask how theirs did. But those firsts are gone now.

You're no longer the first person on my socials. Not in the row of people with their My Days and Stories. Maybe it's the algorithm working as lately, I've intentionally stopped checking your uploads (and I did the same for “others”, too). Those were regular things to do, a part of our lives (or maybe just mine). Four years is a long time, but people are magically skilled, they can make it short if they want to.

Only one person from my side knows the reason you gave. Some have asked what happened, but it isn’t my story to tell. They better ask you, my mind utters every time. 

Once, I had a slip saying we are still who we were before. For a fraction of a second, I paused; my brain sent a trigger — which I don't know if the person I was talking to noticed — it corrected me. It reminded me that we're done. It didn't hurt, or maybe I wired my brain for it not to hurt. It felt like I was just correcting a simple subject-verb agreement I missed in haste.

There was a commotion last month, for sure you know. I kept on checking if yours was greyed out, and when I was sure it was not, I can say it was a relief, somehow. But if it was, I was not really sure how to react. Would I reach out? Probably not. 

But during those days, I wished I could tell you how I felt the world was unfair again. That it seems it's telling me to listen, to be sensitive to others who lost someone that day, when in fact, I lost a piece of my circle, too. There's guilt and shame within me, not really knowing which is which. I blamed myself for that loss because, perhaps, I didn't give that person enough focus. 

But everyone around me probably didn't notice. Maybe because theirs was a heavier sack to carry and mine? Me? I can get by. Because I always make sure the boat won't sink as I don't know how to swim. Prevention is better than cure, right? The best warriors are the ones who stop the war from happening, not the ones that make the troop win during the war — you used to say something like that; from the book you've read. I’ve also wished you, too, tried to stop yourself. Or perhaps, I wished you did something to prevent this "war" from happening. I also wished I had been given signs so I could have done something to prevent this boat from sinking.

That Christmas Eve, you sent a message. I knew you just meant well; to send well wishes and definitely, to once again apologize. A part of me wished you didn't. That you didn't have to send a reiteration of why you did what you did because it just once again reminded me that I couldn't be enough for you. And perhaps, to anyone else. Now, I think I am hurt not entirely because you left but because of that thought — that something lacks in me, that I am the problem. A better way to say it? Maybe, it's just my ego after all.

I know the world wouldn't stop just for me. It never did. Now, I guess, as we welcome the new normal, I need to acclimate to this new normal of mine, too. The world won't stop for me, but I can allow myself to.

And so I start to tell myself that it's OK for me to pause and feel sad (and cry) about endings.

So the loop continues so.