Free Fall

"I am writing now with a heavy heart. And the only therapy I can think of is to put all of my emotions and thoughts into words. It’s the only thing I know how to do, now. I just let go of something that I’ve held on to for a lot of years.

I am only now realizing the importance of presence. It is difficult to be far away from the people you love and care for. It is a sickness that just eats at your chest and bores a hole into your being. In the first few months it can be liberating but as time goes on, you just try to convince yourself that it everything is fine. You lie to yourself every time you look at your reflection in the mirror. You try to keep in the emotional vomit that puts a knot in your throat and crashing against your teeth. Although you try your hardest to make them feel that you’re never gone, just far away; it almost always never works out. And it is more painful to think that you’ve been let go without you knowing. That they have cut the tether and that you are drifting away. You really do feel like you’ve drifted away, only, it hits you all at the same time.

As I write this, I feel like shattering into a million shards of glass. Every breath is an effort. Merely focusing my eyes becomes labor. My head is heavy with thoughts that eat at me. My chest is a gruesome hole. I wish it was just physical. I scraped my right elbow last night as I grovelled and pleaded. They were to no avail.

There are different types of love but I’m only going to define two of them. The first one being romantic love – the feeling of a first kiss, the exhilarating rush of meeting someone new and instantly hitting it off from the get-go. It’s the kind of love that is fuelled by passion. You are just spinning and you don’t care if you fall off the edges of the world. It’s the kind of love that makes you high.

And the other is the kind of love that does not make you flutter in excitement but it makes you do things you didn’t think you were capable of doing. It is the kind of love that holds on as long as it takes, endures pain, and trusts wholly. It is the kind of love that does not just think about butterflies in your stomach but wonders at night if you’re doing fine, if you’re sleeping tightly and that if you’re feeling better after a skull-cracking bout of migraine. It is the kind of love that fights for you, fights with you, and shares every drop of blood and tear you’ve shed. It is the kind of love that puts you in a pedestal not as an item but as a human being worth of all admiration and respect. It is the kind of love that lingers even if it’s extinguished again and again. It is the kind of love that dims down to let you shine. It is the kind of love that understands your inner storms and tries to calm them with a touch of their hands and a kiss on the forehead. It is the kind of love that weakens at some point but never truly dies. It is the kind of love that is not perfect but is better than your ideal love since it is real. It is the kind of love that will never look at you and judge you. It is the kind of love that never leaves even if you command it to. It is the kind of love that’s made for the long haul, it will endure even if you’re both gone. It is the kind of love that tells you the truth and teaches you how to see the lies that coat every sweet word and gesture. It is the kind of love that nurtures you. It is the kind of love that refuses to look away even if there’s almost nothing to see. It is the kind of love is with you all the time but doesn’t brag about its presence. It is the kind of love that sticks to you until the end or whenever it feels like it. It is the kind of love that holds your hand while you both imagine a future together. It is the kind of love that sees only a promise of tomorrow if you’re in it. It is the kind of love that loves you not because you are shiny and beautiful but because you are the only person they know how to love and care for. It is the kind of love that reserves only the best for you because you’re the only one they deem worthy of it. It is the kind of love that is reserved, timid, and quiet but goes deeper than what you first imagined. It is the kind of love that lives for you.

Which one would you prefer?

To the world, you want to be someone. But to someone, you are the world. To them, you are stardust - the reason for their existence. Will you return the favor and make their world spin? Will you grow to be their universe? Will you talk to the stars and tell them thank you for making your paths cross? Will you stay until the end – when the fight is over and all you can hear is static? Will you hold the hand that never meant to hurt you and only wished to give you everything? Will you be stardust?

Walking away is the most painful think I imagine myself doing. But what happens then if it’s the only choice? How can you take a step away from the source of your beliefs and hopes? I wonder what that first step will feel like. I imagine it to be a fall off a cliff. At one moment you’ll feel like it’s an infinite plunge and then suddenly it stops. You’ve just taken the first step, how does the idea of falling again and again sound to you as you think about the number of steps you need to take to truly walk away? Or how about, you turn around and just stay?"