How I feel about life right now — barely surviving on what little “water” I have left.
I Hate Goodbyes - Adam Young
this was the sort of goodbye that produces dull, persistent, throbbing heartache, the kind that takes a long time to heal. It was the close of a long chapter of life, the kind of conclusion that keeps you awake for days, pacing the house with the lights out and the phone off. This particular sad farewell left a hole in my chest and a bittersweet taste in my mouth, as saying goodbye has a way of doing. It tasted like past romance, a bouquet of indelible memories laced with lost love and confused emotions, the flowery passion and affection of two starry-eyed dreamers, tangled up in the ribbons of a faded fairy tale.
Sappy and dramatic, yes?
Why is it — the faster you attempt to heal from something painful, the more frequently it tends to haunt you? When will the ghosts under the stairs give up and go home? Why can’t I give them five bucks and the car keys and tell them to take the night off? If anyone knows the answer to these questions, please call me and we’ll discuss the whole thing over bowls of crunchy diamonds drenched in skim milk.
Perhaps THAT, dear friends, is the hardest part of saying goodbye to someone; knowing you MUST move on even though every fiber of your being screams at you to obey your instincts to cling for dear life. Maybe that’s why the mountaineer must grit his teeth, dig in his claws and continue the climb, no matter the cost, no matter the odds, no matter the price. Every aching muscle screams at him to give up and go home but he MUST be strong, resilient, resolved and steadfast. It’s funny how the word “integrity” means nothing until you stare Anguish in the face and tell her sister Agony to beat it.
Cue the Sun by Adam Young
Perhaps you can relate to what I’m about to describe because it’s the kind of feeling you can sense hurtling toward you before it impacts your casual given disposition like a hammer to a bell. There’s usually a dead moment before the explosion, a lull before the storm, a deep breath before the plunge — and then the painful memory is all over you like white on rice. Something you see or read, something somebody says, some random thought triggers another thought and the whole mess snowballs… it doesn’t really matter what causes it… it just reminds you of HIM or HER, and such a sudden pang of romantic remembrance thrusts a sharp knife into your spine, a painful antithesis to the old sentimental shivers that used to shoot down said spine.
It’s funny how insomnia has a way of hauling faded memories up from the cellar of the mind, unearthing buried bits of nostalgia from deep within and spreading the broken, jagged pieces out in front of you like a display of junk at a garage sale. It makes you feel cheap and guilty when you didn’t do a thing in the world to kindle the dull burn in your veins or the sting in your eyes. Some nights the painful past unexpectedly pushes up through the floorboards like an ugly nightmarish weed, and by doing so, cultivates and nurtures an entirely new species of headache.
Regardless of circumstance, attempting to usurp the emerging enmity between yourself and the past is like trying to fight an endless army of vampires back up the attic stairs, armed only with a rolled up newspaper. Little can be done to avoid such sudden “attacks” if you can call them that, and what exactly are you supposed to do when they occur? Let them dishearten and harrow you until they’ve lost their perceived potency and you feel yourself caught in a slow death grind where compromise is inevitable? Do you battle the onrush back long enough to slam the attic door and lock it down with the biggest padlock you can find? And then what? How do you get rid of the key? Do you hide it in the bottom drawer you never use? Do you bury it in the garden under the lilacs? It’s only a matter of time until they break down the attic door, in which case it means you either run… or wait for them.
Memories are tough things to consciously ignore, especially the sad variety. They’re difficult to predict, hard to forecast, and once the downpour begins, it’s impossible to stay dry. Angry clouds jam together in the overcast like newly felled timber logs floating downriver, headed for a network of rapids, spillways, waterfalls, and ultimately the saw.
