Ultimatum

I've never been fond of goodbyes. Somehow, that feeling of bidding something farewell, if even only for a small allotment of time, has saddened me since my childhood. Along the winding roads of life, you find sanctuaries and friends, things that comfort you and quell the primitive emotions that dwell in all of our hearts. We wander an endless road, with danger lurking in every corner and the future never certain. It's a miracle to find something familiar along that route, and we clutch onto it for dear life because of our ever-present fear of the unknown. Each one of us is a baby on the inside, and these comfort items manifest themselves in many ways- teddy bears, alcohol, a sport, music, or even a person. Letting go is never easy, but it is indeed a common bump along this road of life. You find something that makes you happy, grab ahold of it, but eventually have to let it go. What's the point?

Last week, I went on a journey that would forever rewrite my life. By the luck of the stars and good grace of God, I wound up sailing the oceans for a week with the nicest group of people I had ever met. Among them was the most elegant and gorgeous girl I had ever bore witness to in this life. She was a fallen angel, everything about her was flawless. I was in love with this girl from the moment I first laid eyes upon her, and I went out of my way to try and make her feel like the princess she was. The night after we first met, I suffered a bout of the insomnia that ever chases my sweet slumber away, and ended up writing to her the most detailed and heartfelt love letter I had ever spewed out of my incomplete, human brain. There was no doubt that I loved her, but if I didn't confess to her how strongly I felt for her, she would be lost to the rolling tides and choppy waves of humanities ocean. I needed to act.

I ended up standing atop a small stage in front of a hundred or so odd people the following day. And in both the bravest and stupidest thing that I have ever done, I read every single word of that letter aloud in full view and judgment of the public. In that one moment, I forever changed the course of events in my life.

The damage was done. I fessed up to every last bit of love in my heart that I had for her. Everybody knew. The room was filled with shock as this girl turned bright red and covered her face with a pillow in embarrassment. I knew that in her head, she has already murdered me a dozen times. But there was no matter. I could breathe easily knowing that she now understood what I felt towards her, and there was hope in my heart.

Two days later, I said goodbye to her forever.

They say that if you truly love something, you should love it enough to let it go. I beg to differ. Life is brutal and harsh enough as it is, and it is a miracle to stumble upon something that you can treasure as much as I treasured this girl. In the twists and turns in the road of life, we stumble and trip and lose our valuables along the way. We weep, we shed tears, we mourn, but life goes on.

Why?

I had never loved anything so much. I needed her. In the few short days that I had known her, she had become the centerpiece of the sloppy fiasco of nonsense and emotion that I call my life. She had possessed my heart, and I was holding onto her for dear life. But I let her go. She and I said our goodbyes and parted ways, and this princess that I was so entirely and completely in love with would return to her home kingdom. She left, and I couldn't follow. We were on different paths in that lengthy stretch of road that we call life, and our that fork in the road spilt and carried her away.
Where do you go from here?

I guess this is the part of life where you just have to choke back the years and force out a goodbye. That week spent with her was worth nothing more than a daydream, it was there and in the time that it lasted it was beautiful and flawless, but it came to an end and I was left with nothing more than sweet memories of something that never could have been real. I woke up and collided head on with the solid walls of reality. Whatever fairy tale that existed ever so briefly now laid in pieces beneath me as I drew up my head and came to terms with the real world. The fantasy that her and I had written together was washed away by the waves of reality.

I am still praying that this is only the first page of our story. Something deep inside of me clings onto her fiercely, but all logic and reasoning contradict this urge that I have. The likelihood that her and I will ever again cross paths is near zero. Whatever existed between us is gone now and will never exist again. There were so many things that I held back from her during out short time together. But would revealing them really have made a difference? To her? To anyone? What does it matter? We are two people out of billions, and we will both be dead within a manner of years, lost to grimey textbooks and dusty records. People grow old, fall in love, retire, and work their own personal way down this winding road of life. No one would care what we had. We were insignificant. In the grand scheme of things, who would care? We were just two tiny specks of life surrounded by billions of other specks dotting this green rock we call home, surrounded by an endless expanse of cosmic frontier. Why would anyone remember us?

Will she even remember me?

Time keeps ticking forward, and we keep coasting along down life's grand interstate. She vanished amongst the dots of light on the horizon, and I am left alone with nothing more than fragments of memories to clutch onto. She is gone now, and short of a time machine, I have no way of reversing that. I can do nothing more than grit my teeth and have faith that maybe I left behind some reason to be missed, and maybe, somewhere out there in amongst the billions of people on our planet, she might feel the same. Maybe this isn't the end of the short chapter that we had begun writing together. The co author is still out there, and maybe her and I will one day meet again and continue writing the beautiful piece of literature that I call life. Somewhere, sometime, her and I will be reunited, and I'm holding out a lot of hope.

But until then, goodbye, Megan.