Maybe We Were Never Done…

I don’t know what happiness is. I don’t know what being content is. But I can hardly say I’m resentful anymore. When I think of the past, I think of everything that wasn’t. I think of everything there is now. I see the roads I’ve trudged and the ones I did not. I feel deep disappointment that followed me everywhere I went and after a point, they stopped. They came when you left. They’ve gone when you came back.

When you returned, I started to spin a tale almost beyond me. I was skeptical, more unwilling than wanting to accept you again. I barely wanted to open that jam-padded door. Thousands of what ifs. What if you walked away again? What if you hurt me again?

I still very clearly remember the night 2 years ago when I spoke to you again for the first time in 7 years. And as soon as I hung up, I asked myself, “What does he want now? What can he possibly want after all these years?” I was beyond me. Shocked than surprised. Almost immediately, I smiled and answered myself, “Maybe this time, he’s ready.” “And what could that be? I don’t think there’s anything I want anymore, not from him.” And the reply was there even before I asked myself that. “Maybe you do.”

Almost 2 years later, walking this road together, I’ve come to believe things I never thought were possible. Unlike Alice, there aren’t just six impossible things, there are many. And I don’t think of them at breakfast alone, but all through the day and the night and the next day and the following day and so on.

I have come to believe that,

• It’s okay to not have some dreams come true.
• It’s okay to not expect to be loved back when that’s all you’ve ever wanted
• It’s okay to accept rejections
• It’s okay to leave things unsaid and undone
• It’s okay to break down in a crowd and walk hazy eyes and maybe stumble and fall
• It’s okay to scribble pages and empty your mind
• It’s okay to spend sleepless nights
• It’s okay to come to accept the one killing truth, he’s not meant for you, no matter how perfect it seems

And most importantly,

• It’s okay to let go

I always thought these were impossible to do. Now, I see, how much more possible it really is. Leaving that boat sailing on dreams and stepping on land with gravel crunching under my feet, I realize it’s time to see the truth than spinning my own fairytales. When I walk, I feel the stones dig into my skin, it pricks, and it hurts. These stones are similar to those memories that could’ve been. That they won’t ever come true, hurts.  But no matter how much it aches, the realization is better than walking on clouds and falling from a height that’d hurt inexplicably bad.

So, now, I know, why after all these years, you had to come back. I’d never let you go; I could never let you go. But now, somehow it seems possible.

I was totally wrong. Maybe we were never done. Maybe we were meant to be together, just not the way I’d thought and this is why you are here. To show me it was easier to forgive. To show me I was still capable of loving with all the broken pieces of my heart. To show me the places I was to be perfected – anger, grudges, sourness.  To show me I could still be happier even after having given away my best possession. And most of all, to show me I am stronger than I thought I was.

-Asha Seth