Say goodnight and go.

I was doing ok. Not great. Not perfect. Not elated. But ok. Ok felt good. After the past few years, I could settle for ‘ok’.

Just ok was just enough.

For the first time in a long time I thought that maybe I didn’t need anyone, that maybe I had enough, maybe I was enough.

… and then she posted a picture of you.

It crushed me. How incredibly stupid. How irrelevant. How little it impacts my day-to-day life. How mad I am at myself that, even so, it seems to change everything.

More than that, how mad I am at you.

When you left, I had a story to tell myself. I had worked so hard to make my peace with that story. It was a story that didn’t make me feel like I wasn’t enough because I believed you when you said you liked me. I believed you when you said there was a connection that made our goodbye difficult. I believed you when you said you were afraid of closeness because you didn’t like feeling vulnerable. I can replay it in my head – it felt so genuine, so authentic.

For the first time in a long time, I walked away from a man feeling like I was enough, or maybe even too much. I miss[ed] you but I was in tact.

Did you mean it?

I want so badly for you to have meant it. I want so badly to know that I mattered to you because you matter[ed] so much to me. And I don’t want to have to grapple with rejection and question my sanity at the same time.

But that picture. Those pictures. They change it all. Now I wonder if you meant any of it or if it was just a gentle letdown. An easier way to say: ‘I don’t care for you. I don’t like you. I don’t want to spend my time with you. You’re not what I want but she is.’

Now, I need a new story. I’m not sure which one to tell myself. I can tell myself the most painful story; that I was never ‘it’ and she is. That you were always ready to take those steps, just, not with me and you weren’t sure how to break that news to hopeful girl standing in front of you. Maybe, if I tell myself that story I’ll find it easier to close the door.

Or, I can tell myself that everything I felt was really there. That our connection was authentic, electric, full of potential and you threw it away because you were scared. This story leaves the door ajar – torturously ajar.

Both stories hurt in different ways and neither feels like the right answer. But how could I possibly expect myself to know the right answer to the riddle of you? How ambivalent you were. One moment sipping coffee in bed with me, slowly and carefully reading me your favourite essay. The next, gone – a disappearing act I suspected was on it’s way but still, naively, hoped to avoid.

You never carried my luggage anywhere.

Where are you carrying hers?

Do you carry it carefully?

Do you carry it willingly and happily or do you carry it grudgingly?

I am still carrying the luggage of him and you on my own.

Alternative stories.

Weighty feelings.

Nagging questions.

Heavy bags.

They make me tired.

But ... they make me strong.

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