Our time together is nearing its end. Perhaps at first we both may have thought this wouldn’t be true, but I believe we’ve both sensed this coming for awhile now. Maybe I put more stock in you than you ever did me. I just couldn’t help myself. You came into my life when I had nothing more to lose. It was between dying or trying to make it work with you and I just wasn’t ready to give up. My mistake was to expect you to fix all that ailed me. How foolish of me! You were just as lost as I was…
I love you truly, in my own way…but not the way you need me to. And I see now that I thought too much of our short time together. I committed too hastily to you, fell into your arms with wreckless abandonment of everything I’d ever known, of everyone I’d ever loved and let my expectations get the best of me. They hurt me, too, you know. They turned me cold, rejected my affections, left me feeling ashamed of my own skin. My warmth and openness were used against me. I can see they’ve done it all to you, too. I only wish you would have trusted me enough to let me in. Maybe then we could have seen it through.
It’s just too late for us now.
Oh, but you reversed the seasons for me, kept me warm most times and cooled me so gently and sweetly that even your icy chills were embraced. But our lonely nights together made me long for the very place I fled from. I know I came willingly. I know I ran to you, came when you called – longed for you even – but when I arrived, it was far from what you’d promised me. You lied to me. I know you don’t see it that way, but it’s true. Perhaps you did it out of politeness, maybe because of fear of who you are, of letting someone in too close. But you lied to me all the same.
But darling, you also taught me how to feel again, to love deeply and hate fully. You made me stand up for my rights and fight for my life. You pushed me to find solace in sitting with the pain, to use my anger as motivation and my fear as armor. Because of you, I learned to grow strong in my loneliness and to be more discerning about who should draw me away from myself – even though it only meant I pushed you further away. You showed me that even when I have no one else, I can still survive. And you reminded me of all I’d given up just to hold them close. But they slipped away still. You lost them, too, didn’t you? The more you tried to hold on, the quicker they left.
We could keep this going on forever, but that would only be prolonging the inevitable. You know this as well as I do. I have to move on now – I just have to. You understand this, right? It hurts me, too, but someday we’ll both see it as best for us. We’ll never be able to make a home together.
So, goodbye, Kentucky. I’ll miss your city lights and being alone with your mountains. I’ll miss the company of new friends you brought to me (our time together was much too brief, my dears). I’ll miss speeding down the interstate alongside your rolling hills as cops fly past by me instead of pull me over. But let’s face it, darling: it just wasn’t meant to be.
Anonymous