There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to stand down. That time has come for me. The time when I look back at all I’ve written in the last few years and reflect. The time to stop. To wonder. To sigh with a sad smile drawn on my face, knowing what comes next.
This is the last time I will write about my ex. It’s hard, and probably after I’m done with this, my last post about her, I will feel there’s so much more to tell. And there is. There always will be something. But this chronic thinking and blogging about her has taken its toll on me. The memories, the pain, the love and resentment, it’s just too much to carry on. The first time I mentioned her was July 15th, 2013. Is more than three years enough? It may or may not be, but it ends here.
“L changed my life” is a huge understatement. Meeting her was an experience so disrupting, so powerful, that made me rebuild myself from the ground up. She was the creative force behind the reiterations that made me be who I am now, and that got me to this place, both geographically and existentially. She was that kind of person, and I’m thankful for having met her.
On Tuesday, I wrote her a long email I will never send. In a span of an hour, I cried more than I did in all of 2016. “Express mourning,” if you will. The final goodbye. It fucked me up, but it was liberating. Then, why not sending it? For the same reason I’m also having trouble writing this. I didn’t want to hurt her. Although, on the other hand, wouldn’t it be worse to pretend that I don’t give a fuck and move on, just like that? Yet one more thing I’m clueless about.
“What’s left when there’s nothing left?” I wrote a few days ago. I had no answer to that question. Still I don’t. Memories, good and bad, fade. The flashes of our story together, that come with certain smells or songs, are shorter and shorter. The pain, that ever-present pain, hurts less with every day that goes by. And life follows its course, uninterrupted. Nothing stops. Nothing waits.
L was an experience worth a thousand lives. Every kiss, every night cuddling in the dark, every breakfast in bed, every heated discussion about politics, every “Taco Friday,” every laugh, fight, caress, cry, hug. Everything, every single thing, was intense from beginning to end. The closeness to death couldn’t make me forget her, nor a year apart has helped me get over her completely. That’s how deep it was. That’s how worthwhile she was.
My life’s been shitty as fuck. But through all the shit, through miles and miles of shadowy existence, she was my light and my rock. And though our relationship didn’t work, there’s a part of my mind and my very soul that will always be hers.
I wish I was better with words, or better at endings. I am neither. I’m just Eduardo, a guy that once had a great woman by his side. A woman that I’m sure will continue to be great, and will enlighten those around her, as she already enlightened me. I wish her the best, for that is just what she deserves.
Farewell my love, my friend. Farewell L.
