Letters to You: A False Declaration of 'Goodbye'
Hi Bam-Bam
I’m sure you know what this will say, but I want to say it anyway. As full as I can, as honestly as I can. As concisely as I can.
I can’t keep seeing you.
When I think about how I would want my own love-story to go, it can’t start off with “and he was in a relationship at the time…” no matter how surreal or dreamlike—or full of hope—our first encounter had been. This is one of the most painful things I’ve had to do in a long time, but I’ve never been able to shy away from the right thing to do, even if it was hard…even if it meant 5 years of suffering and hurting, and blaming myself. I hold myself to such a high standard of integrity, and bravery, and I’ve been pretending otherwise. It’s easy to do around you because you make me feel so…safe, and happy, and warm, and I never thought I would feel that again, or be seen by another person the way you see me, and I have wanted so badly to hang on to that feeling. To bask in it forever if I could.
But it reminds me of all the times I have waited and been left behind. Where I have hoped to be chosen, and wasn’t. Where I have chased after crumbs, or fallen to my own knees, begging to be loved. And I want so badly to have the chance to be loved, fully, by you. And love fully in return. And I can’t imagine it lasting if it starts like this. A secret. A shame. That would haunt me for the rest of my life. It is so hard for me already, to look myself in the eye.
I don’t want to say “this was fun while it lasted”, because it wasn’t fun. It was steady. It was refreshing. It was hopeful. It has filled me with a joy I have not felt in a long time, maybe ever. A kind of peace and reassurance that filled me with a certainty I could follow until the end of my life, and beyond. I was beaming—I have not let this sun in me, shine in such a way before, I hate to extinguish it. I hate to wake up.
I could have loved you. I wanted to. I think maybe I had already begun to. That sounds so silly, and wild, but it’s true. I wanted to love you. To be sustained on the stolen moments. The touches, the hunger of wanting to hold you against me longer. To kiss you. To be loved on by you. I wanted it all. I want it all. But I can’t get by with just pieces of you. I want to taste you without guilt. Devour you without shame. Without a hole in my heart telling me, “it always happens like this, you were a fool to believe—to hope—it would be different this time.”
I want it to be different this time
