12:32

I’m sitting here listening to a little Nikka Costa and thinking. Which is never, EVER good. Homecoming is officially over and it was okay but with the end of homecoming comes something more significant… the end of distraction as I know it. I don’t have any more events, no more nights of hanging at the bar, no more nights out until 5am to distract me from the things that I have been desperately trying not to think about.

So, I am sitting, and thinking, turning thoughts and feelings over in my mind, feeling like I want to cry at certain intervals and never giving into the feeling.

You remember what it was like that very last day of middle school before high school when you hung out with your friends, cried and laughed and reminisced, knowing that this could very well be the last time you see them? You know that desire to sit and seal it all memory, commit all the sights and sounds and words to a very special folder in your mind so that you may open it when you need it’s familiarity? How you realize that there is no going back, that you must go forward, but you’re fighting the desire to hold on until your hands bleed?

I want to hold on…. I’m holding on. But my hands are starting to bleed.

I was sitting here and I realize that it’s time. It’s time to let go, give my hands a rest. It’s time to erase the number from my phone, time to breathe through the anger no matter how bitter I am still about it. It’s time to put away the memories of the laughs, the late nights of talking, the sweet phone calls and messages. It’s time to start forgetting the feeling of the touch of his hand and the smell of his body. I have to stop reading and re-reading the letters until the creases in the paper grow brittle and tear. I have to stop tearing up at the sight of places we once went, squelch the butterflies on the streets we once walked. I have to stop remembering the conversations, the sound of his laughter, the comfortable ease with which we existed. It’s time to let go of the special ring on my phone, the plans, the ideas, the hopes for us that filled my head and tailored my plans. It’s time to stop reliving the last year in my head, smiling at the good times, crying at the things that hurt me still, time to stop caring about his life and start taking better care of myself, time to find someone who takes just as good care of me as well. It’s time to stop beating myself up and dissecting and sifting through what I fucked up or did wrong. It’s time to stop.

It’s time to let go.

It’s funny how healing hurts almost as much as the initial injury does.

It’s time. I know that. And it hurts quite a bit. I cover myself in the knowledge that I’ve been here before, done this before, that I didn’t think I’d get through then either and that I did despite everything and came out better than ever. I remind myself that I am strong, even when injured, that I exist, thrive even, through pain that many only read about in their newspapers in the morning or watch on TV at night. I relive the moments where I was okay standing alone, where I made it through, when I looked back on pain and realized that I was on the other side. Those are the things that I must remember, hold dear to me, rather than wallow in what should have been. I am almost through the tunnel and I think that maybe I can just now see the light on the other side.

In my quest to hold onto things out of fear of being left, I think that maybe I started to hold on to my detriment. I remember that feeling in middle school, that unfathomable, bittersweet loss. That fear of starting over, of being alone, of letting go of the relationships you’ve worked so hard to build. And no matter how I disagree, no matter how much I believe that it’s not for the best, if someone is looking for a way out, if someone is trying to leave and just can’t say it, you must let go. If you know, already, that they’ve checked out, that they’re just waiting, biding their time until they can make a graceful exit of sorts, make it easy on them and on you and just let go. There is no holding onto someone who doesn’t want to be held, who wants to walk away.

I’ve held on so long my hands are bleeding. I’ve fought so hard that my arms, my chest, my knuckles are bruised from the fight. I wish I would have figured out a long time ago that if I just let go that I wouldn’t have to suffer, wouldn’t have to be in pain. It’s time to let go so maybe my hands can start to heal.