This Is Me Giving Up On Us

I think I’ve finally given up on us.

It hit me like a slap on the cheek. A slap shocking enough to alert all my senses, but not painful enough to hurt. The hand of time dealt me an unexpected one, softened by its passing but a slap back into reality nonetheless. 

For the longest time, I’ve lingered within the thought of what we once had. A history so strong it deserved to be protected even in memory. So tender it needed to be held with both hands, cuddled and shielded. Shielded from the passing of time itself. From scar tissue and deep wounds. Shielded from the people we’ve now become.

Maybe I finally get it now. It took a while, but I think I understand what you might have all along. 

I carried the remnants of us in the palm of my hands like a puzzle missing only a few pieces. Cautious steps and steady moves. An anxious heart that would beat even faster and louder then. The sound of my heart was loud enough to give me a jumpscare all on its own. I danced to the beat it created, even though it made me sick.

But near-finished puzzles aren’t meant to be held in unsteady sweaty palms. They should be placed on a firm surface and guarded quietly until the remaining pieces are found and stuck together. Seems I was in such a hurry to find what was missing that I began to make a fool out of myself like that. 

The truth is I carried us carefully like we were breakable. Indeed we were. Breakable. 

That is why we needed armor to protect the little that still tied us together. That’s why we held unto history with bleeding hands rather than let go to allow our bruised flesh to heal. We held a tight grip on a rope that was now barbed wire and pretended we couldn’t feel the pain. With each and every battle scar, we swore the history was worth fighting for. “Our history is worth fighting for,” I’d said overconfidently.

But what good is history without a future? It’s just that—history. Nothing more and nothing less. 

This is what I know now. History can be left where it is and still be beautiful. At times, history should be left where it is to stay beautiful. 

Sometimes chasing after what is already over can turn it into something too ugly to look at.

We were once beautiful. Young in all our glorious youth, unaware that our golden days were golden then indeed. We had our inside jokes and our sincere laughs. We had it all, we just didn’t know it.

But now we have distance and shattered expectations and lost trust. Could things turn any uglier now?

So, I’ll leave us in the past—a dazzling history, timeless folklore. I’ll let us be, for who we are now is no longer who we once were. 

Ghosts and shadows. That’s what I’ve been aimlessly searching for. I’ve been chasing my tail, looking for something that no longer exists. 

In history. In memory. In old tales of a time that’s no longer. We were beautiful. 

It’s time I admit the time has come for that to be enough.