Driving this car off the cliff

It's time to say goodbye to what I thought we had. I don't know if I was realistic in believing it was truly how I saw it, but it doesn't matter now. There's nothing left to do but say goodbye.

I don't think I'm strong enough to do this. I don't feel strong enough to hold myself up in a chair right now. It has to be done, and I'm never going to be okay some distant someday until I let it go completely.

The pain is mostly over. Now it's just me holding on to sadness, and sadness does what sadness does. We've parted ways. We've walked our separate paths now. We've seen that neither of us had what the other needed.

It's so hard to miss her sometimes. And, it's the only thing I can actually feel most days. If I say goodbye to this, then I will have nothing — just a big, black hole in my chest. Still, I know this is all I will ever have if I don't let go. Letting go means I can have something someday, even if I don't know what that looks like now. The hope of having something replace this is what is driving me to say goodbye. Otherwise, I'll keep driving this car off the cliff, over and over, like a bad movie scene replaying.

It's time to leave my pain here and walk away from it, even if that's all that's binding me to her. As much as I miss her, this isn't really HER; it's just the pain of losing her. It's the only thing left. I guess that's why it took me so long to get to this point.

I don't know what I'm capable of; I don't know the future. All I know is that I can't do any of this right now. I knew this day would come, and I knew I wouldn't be prepared. But, that's what life does; it makes you do things you're not ready for. And you have to just do it the only way you know how, even if you're making it up as you go along.

That seems like a fitting way to spend the rest of my life — making it up as I go along. There's no great hurry to get it right. If I can't get it right, then it's just as well. It's only me who feels the sting of defeat now.

If I can extricate one woman from my heart, I can do another. Here's hoping. And, truly, this is the most heartening thought — if I set her free, maybe she'll do what she has to do and make things right on her end. It will be a permanent goodbye, but it will be worth it to see her set her world right again. Even if I don't actually see it.

It should be easier today than yesterday. Each day she fades a little more into nothing. Tomorrow will be easier still. I can't expect to feel better anytime soon if I keep hanging on to something that's gone.

I knew all of this would happen; my heart warned me and my head informed me. I'm ending up exactly where I knew I would — alone. If life has taught me anything, it's that being alone is the best place to be.