Farewell

In preparation for leaving, today I started sorting through 9 years of crap on this computer. There's so much music and so many pictures and little things that I've saved over the years. There's alot that I've deleted and alot that I'll be saving as well. Reading through some things, I started thinking about how much things have changed since I started working here 9 years ago. How much I have changed. I was just a kid when I started here in 2001. Two week before September 11th.

I found a letter today that I wrote to someone that was very special to me. It's in the delete pile, but I wanted to read it one last time and put it up here for a last goodbye of sorts. I remember the feelings I had when I wrote this and the feelings I had for a long time afterwards. I've been inspired lately to share and not hold back so what the hell. It happened, and I felt it so why be ashamed of it now?

It’s been forever since I last saw you. Since the last time you walked out after trying one last time to change my mind. I knew of your new “love” and how you told me you could fall in love with her. That she reminded you of me. That she was pretty, but not as pretty as me. I remember the times you pleaded with me to open up and let you love me. You said you didn’t want me to miss out on you because you knew you could love me forever and you wanted me to have that kind of love. That I would be missing out on something great and that one day I would regret it. That one day it would be too late. I think deep down I was scared to death that you were right but was too blinded by the world that was waiting to listen. I was restless.

I had so much growing up to do and so many things to see and people to experience and so much to learn about myself.

I remember looking into your eyes and knowing without a single doubt that you loved me. I remember the exact moment that I fell in love with you. Laying in bed while you were sleeping, looking out the window and feeling like my heart would bust. Knowing that I’d never loved anyone that much.


Looking back, I can’t pinpoint where things started to go wrong. Who’s fault it initially was. We both contributed to an unhealthy relationship and still held on for dear life. In the end though, it was me who made the most mistakes. I had so many great reasons back then why I wanted and needed to get out. I couldn’t wait to.


I did experience new people and places and learned a lot about myself and the world and had those times I wanted so bad to have. I had wonderful times with some really great people and made lots of memories. I changed into a completely different person. But what I’ve come to realize years later, is that I always took you with me. Even when months would pass without a single thought of you. Somehow you made the journey with me. Maybe it’s because you were my first real love. People say you never forget your first love. But it’s more than just never forgetting.


I can still see your face on the day we sat out in that open field after I’d hurt you pretty badly. You were so hurt and disappointed in me and I remember telling myself that things would be different from that day on. That I’d never hurt you again. But I was wrong.


I remember your face when we were sitting in the parking lot in the rain and you cried and told me that you couldn’t do it anymore.


I remember when we got caught in that storm at the Morgan County fair. Watching you run in the rain to get the truck and looking back at me and smiling.


I remember the way you’d cling your teeth together with that little crooked smile when you were nervous.


I remember your hands.

I remember the building you used to stop at everyday on the way to work and call me. I pass by there and think of you every time.

I remember when we first met. How we’d play those Kenny Chesney songs over and over and stare at one another from across the store. We drove everyone crazy.


I remember the first time I kissed you and the song that was on the radio right afterwards.

God I remember everything. So many random smiles and facial expressions that are etched in my memory forever. Your nervous habits, your accent that I would tease you about, the day we met, our first little lunch at McDonald's when we threw fries at each other, the songs we would play, sitting in the parking lot after work just talking about everything and nothing. I remember the moment I knew I was in love, I remember the moment I knew it was over and every other moment in between.


Most of all though, I remember exactly the way you looked at me. Like you loved me. It was there in your eyes and I remember it more plainly than anything else.


Knowing you the way I do, I know that you’ve been over me for years and that you love your wife with everything you have. I know that you give yourself to her completely and that you’re in love with her. I know that you wouldn’t have married her if you weren’t. I know that you want to be with her forever and want to spend your life making her happy. I know that you’re a wonderful daddy. I know that you’re proud of your family and that they’re everything to you. I also know, that way more than I should, I wish it was me.


I wish I was the one you loved like that. That I had met you later in life and that I’d married you the way we had planned. That we had a little girl that looked like you.


You’re in my thoughts no matter how much time goes by, or who you marry or how far away you are or how many kids you have. No matter how hard I try to push you out. No matter who I love or what I do.


I wish I could say it’s something I’ve just learned to live with. That it’s okay that I feel this way and I’m used to it.


I wish I could just leave the past in the past and be okay with the memories.


I wish I didn’t have so much regret when it comes to you.


I wish I didn’t love you anymore.


I wish I could stop dreaming about you.

I wish I didn’t think of you and feel guilty about it.

I wish I’d never found out that you were married.

I wish those songs didn’t antagonize me the way they do.


I wish you had tried harder to get me to kiss you the last time I saw you.


I wish I could honestly say that you and I didn’t work out because of whatever reason and not because we didn’t try hard enough.


I wish I had that list of all the things I loved about you that you hung on your wall.

I wish I could go back and re-live so many days.

I wish I could believe that I won’t love you for the rest of my life.

I wish I could fucking let go.


I wish that I could just remember you and smile and not feel anything but happy that you’re happy.
I wish I didn’t remember every little detail of so many days with you.


I wish you had better memories of me.


I wish all those times that you wanted me to sit closer to you in your tuck that I had just done it and not worried so much about my shirt getting wrinkled or messing my hair up.


I read someone’s comment today on youtube that said she had been married 42 years and still remembers and loves her first love from when she was 17. That’s scary. It kind of slapped me across the face and made me realize that there’s a very real possibility that I might always feel this way. That scares me. I don’t want to. I don’t necessarily want to forget all the memories that I have, but I don’t want to be haunted by them anymore either.


I try to look at it any other way than regret. I don’t want to carry that around with me all my life. But so far I have. I remember every stupid mistake I made and every careless thing I did to push us farther apart.


Maybe I feel like....if I write them all down they’ll somehow mean more or maybe I worry that I’ll forget them one day. I don’t think I could.

I guess I thought that I could go off and do whatever I wanted and you’d always be there waiting for me. I kept you at arms length just for safe keeping. And when you came and told me that you found someone that you could fall in love with, I sent you straight to her and told you to go for it. Maybe I couldn’t have done anything. Maybe you would have ended up together no matter what I did or said, but there’s that part of me that kicks myself for it. I was too caught up in my own dramas to give a shit about anything else. Too caught up and selfish to see what I was throwing away. Not until wayyyyy later did I realize it. When it was too late. Just like you said.


I think about it a lot...the day I found out you were married. We were sitting at Calhoun’s with your mom and she was talking about her sons being married and was showing pictures of her grand baby. I was blown away and really since that day, I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. At first I was so shocked because I guess even though I hadn’t talked to you in years, there was something inside me that just always thought you could never love anyone else that way. You were always so serious about marriage that it floored me that you would marry someone else. I’m still shocked. I know that you wouldn’t marry her if you had any doubt whatsoever that she was the one for you. That’s just who you are, which I love that about you, but it just makes me all the more sick inside, for knowing it.

I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that I will probably always feel this way. Maybe I have a lifetime of it ahead of me. Maybe that’s what I deserve.

But it dawns on me often, when I’m driving down the road, or when I hear a song, or when I’m laying in bed... that feeling I always had with you. That content feeling that was always there, even when we were fighting. That feeling that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. I don’t think I’ll ever find it again. I think that feeling is how you know when it's right.

 I guess I should be happy that I ever felt it at all, right? I guess that’s one way of looking at it. Maybe I should just try to be thankful that you ever loved me at all.


I went to the drive in the other night. Your Mom & Dad were there and I looked around for you frantically. Half hoping that you’d be there and half that you wouldn’t. I had to go to the bathroom and cry it out. I don’t want to live my life that way! I thought sending you a message and telling you that I was sorry and that I regret it would make me feel better. Be some sort of closure, but it wasn’t.


It didn’t help at all.


You’ve been at the center of my thoughts this week and stupidly, I cried myself to sleep last night. I was laying there, thinking of how you were probably laying in bed as well, the happiest you’ve ever been in your life and I couldn’t for the life of me stop myself from crying about it.


I keep hoping that I’ll stop thinking about every little word you ever said to me, or every picture I ever took of you or every single time I hurt you. God knows I've tried. But...I miss you. And I'm sorry. 

Reading back over that now I feel sorry for who I was when I wrote that. How sad. On the other hand, I'm thankful that I've moved past it and put it behind me and dealt with what it all means. I no longer torture myself over it and spend way too many hours pining over something that's long and buried. But I'm thankful for the experience of it. I think a little heartbreak is good for the soul. You have to have a taste of it to appreciate everything else. Even though I sound ridiculously like a desperate crazy ex girlfriend in that letter, I'm glad I saved it so I could remember what that felt like. It's always good to learn from your mistakes.