Imagining a Goodbye

Summary

The text is a poignant reflection on a deeply personal and emotional farewell, filled with love, regret, and the pain of parting ways.

Abstract

The author pens a heartfelt and melancholic piece, "Imagining a Goodbye," which delves into the complexities of love and loss. It captures the essence of a relationship that has reached its end, despite the depth of feeling and the shared intimacy. The narrative weaves through moments of tenderness and conflict, highlighting the struggle to maintain love in the face of unresolved differences and the inevitability of change. The poem conveys a sense of longing for what was and what could have been, with the author expressing a profound connection to the partner, despite the pain and tears that marked their time together. It is a raw exploration of the heartache that comes with saying goodbye, even when apologies and love remain.

Opinions

The author expresses a deep yearning for the past, including their health, marriage, and independence.
There is a sense of resignation and acceptance of the end of the relationship, coupled with a continued declaration of love.
The author reflects on the beauty and simplicity of love, juxtaposed with its complexity and the potential for hurt.
They acknowledge their own shortcomings in the relationship, including a lack of understanding and patience.
There is an underlying belief that love involves personal growth and change, and that the parting will lead to new beginnings for both individuals.
The author holds onto hope for their former partner's future happiness, desiring that they find someone who will love them as much as they did.
Despite the sorrow, the author cherishes the unique and irreplaceable moments shared with their partner.

A fictional poem, almost. I wrote it while on my bedpan. It’s quite amazing how sad one can become. Especially when one cannot reach one’s own ass to…you know. I want my life back, I want my wife, and I want to wipe my own ass!

I walk the shore, only to see my footprints, freshly trod, swallowed from the sand. Somehow reassuring me that I came from nowhere or the ocean, a liquid life pouring across the beach not knowing the possibility of falling in love with you, even after I knew there were others. I was determined not to leave the footprint of my life on yours. Not now.

Not after I got you home, knowing everybody else loves you.

But again, you turned to me in our Sunday bed and smiled. And we were warm again, melting into Sunday, trickling down the page, then gone.

Everything is okay. The moth continues to chase the flame. The bees still pollinate. The evening will once again soften into a timeless circle. So simple, love could not be. Neither did I mean to devour love as I might a chocolate cake. I could never have enough. It felt like another place, another war ago when the bullets between the comas of love were left out, causing you injury and bleeding.

All this agony, when every author will tell you it’s worth it. But no. No paragraph is worth the corner cries of a woman feeling unloved because she couldn’t understand the language of love gifted to strangers. Suddenly, we were in a place where there was nothing to laugh at together. Differences, you said. The only difference, I suppose, was that, if I had to, I would change for you, I’m willing, still.

But I wanted you only as you were, are.

Should I fly to London to explain my inadequacies?

We talked as if we’d never say goodbye, but words come easy and without effort. Maybe that’s because we didn’t promise them face to face but at either end of the telephone line. Nevertheless, I knew that this last conversation, however hard or easy, would end with one final goodbye.

I love you still. As much, and as love goes, even more than that first half drunk night, when you concentrated so hard on pleasing me — and did.

Yes, I love you. I’m not afraid to say it even after all the mean and misery that’s passed between us. Apologies are not enough, I know. How could they compensate for rides done in tears and not in laughter across the ocean? How could they make up for Saturday soldiers battling one the other, wounding words spitting out like machine gun bullets? How could they make up for two people desperately in need of one the other not making up?

I apologize. For leading you to London and not letting you love me in your way. At arm’s length. For rushing you, not stopping once to read your needs, thinking I’d fulfilled them each time you filled mine. For intimidation — if that’s what it was — and for me being timid and unsure when pretending love.

I’m sorry for making you think every night in bed would lead to one more potential crisis. It never was intended that way. It never was anything but the very best between us. Even when I knew you forced yourself to bring yourself to me. I never felt anything but happiness and honor and joy in letting go. No one else had yet come close to giving me that feeling.

So, this is it. Goodbye. I love you, and I’ll go on loving. I will change as you will change. I wish you Christmas every time your eyes close. I pray that you will run with deer and soar with eagles, touching on the ground long enough to find that man who will love you every bit as much as I do, and one you’ll feel the same toward.

It is still early in the day for each of us despite the darkness up ahead. I know that there will be someone to lead you through and someone you can lead. That it won’t be me is something I have to live with. While you were adding to my life, I only hope I didn’t interrupt anything within yours.

I’ll move along, walk what remains of your love to a small cafe, order coffee, and think about my life, with all its clutter, lit candles, lovesick songs, tragic plays, and our easy motion on the dance floor; emotions that quickened after dark.

What the world knows of me is not what you know. What the world feels about me is not what you feel. The X, Y, and Gs of my life remembered only at holidays, names in a diary long forgotten, will wonder what happened to me.

In you, I became lost.

Know this, whatever went wrong, your eyes before sleep will be my bedtime reading.