Most do not.

It becomes part of us.

There are flashbacks and reminders.

To a time we thought was finer.

Glorifying the past and forgeting the present for a moment.

Take a deep breath and remind ourselves that we cannot control it.

How?

I cannot give you an answer.

We live with it until it does not hurt anymore or we drown ourselves in it until we die.

And we just laid on a beach towel looking up at the night sky trying to find the meaning of it all. It’s been so long since we’ve been able to be near each other without a nuclear explosion from either one of us. Just two old souls with some memories laying side by side.

He was no more than a foot away. He was never as close as he was right now in years. It saddened me and it was almost comforting at the same time. I wanted him to be here, be in this moment and be back in my life. Having him there would make it seem better. It would make my world less broken than he made it. It all happened so long ago in my head but in my heart it all felt like it happened yesterday. The thought of finally being friends seemed appealing.

Stories tell us about heart ache, they tell us about the feeling of falling in love, they tell us of finding the one and everything that it entails but what they don’t tell us is what it feels like to have everything you want nearly a foot away and telling yourself and being honest with yourself that this is not what you want. Would it be better to have someone that is half there then not there at all? I mean, that’s what it would be like? Having a half of a friend. Half of someone. Half of a feeling that was once held place of many for that half of a person.

I turned my head to look at him as he looked at the night sky and the feeling that came to me when I stared at his features was pure exhaustion. I never thought you could be so exhausted trying to love someone or not love them. Being so exhausted from fighting every feeling. So exhausted from just looking. He made me exhausted of loving him over the years we spent apart… of the time he wanted to be apart and that’s when I knew I couldn’t fight myself anymore. I couldn’t lie to myself. As much as it pained me to see him enter and exit my life as quickly as he normally does nowadays I knew that I was way too full of life to only be half loved by him.

He turned to me and caught me staring “I still wanna try and be friends. I still wanna try and make this work” he said with such hope knowing I would give in. But not this time.

“I will never be able to be your friend.” I said in a saddened tone.

His facial expression turned into confusion.

“ I will always care for you more than you will care for me and I can never see you as a friend because I have loved you more than I have loved anything on this earth and I simply cannot go back. If I went back then it wouldn’t have been love. We can never go back. We can only go forward and up. As much as the thought of friends seems appealing it simply will never be enough” I said as I got up from the beach towel.

He just stared. There was no expression and there were no words.

“What was the last thing you said?” He asked in a concerned manner.

“I said, you’ve lost me” she said as she looked at her hands playing with the ring on her finger with a stone cold expression on her face.

“And did he?” He asked.

Her expressions normally gave herself away and he could read her but not this time. This time something was different.

She gave him a look. The kind of look that you give when a smart ass comment is received. He was a smart ass for a professional. It was the kind of question she expected from him. She knew after telling the story that he was going to ask that question and it’s a question she would rather avoid. A question she had been avoiding for about a month now. A question many thought they didn’t have to ask after being told that story. A question that no one asked her until she walked into this center, sat down on that couch and told him everything that happened the past month.

“Are you going to answer it or are you going to avoid it like you’ve been avoiding dealing with your friends death or how you’ve been avoiding taking care of yourself again because I can do this for the rest of the hour.”

She looked up from her hands and looked him dead in the eye. She didn’t want to say it. It would be like admitting defeat but she had to. There was a point he wanted to make and she wanted answers more than anything.

“No.” She said coldly. She wished it was the opposite because of many reasons. Because she didn’t want to feel that way, she hated getting wrapped up in these feeling and thoughts that crowded her head and her judgement, and then getting angry with herself later, because she knows he doesn’t think about her anymore, how part of her still loves him and he loves someone else, how there aren’t enough romantic quotes or actions she could take to get back something she thought she wanted, how he goes to sleep just fine at night without the thought of her crossing his mind and how they will never cross paths again… not even if she wanted destiny to do it for her .

“Look at that. Progress” he said grinning from ear to ear. As he looked down to scribble something on his notepad. She grabbed the pillow from the couch and threw it at him and hit him right in the face.

“Hey! Now that’s fowl play there” he said jokingly

“I know and you have a whole 45 minutes left with me.”

“If you find your way back I owe you a beer.. For my Record year” Eric Church.

Today marks one year since my whole world has kind of flipped. Everything I thought I would have now, I don’t. Everything I never expected to happen, did and a lot has changed over the past year. This past year has been full of ups and downs but mainly ups. I never thought I could ever be this happy by myself ever again. I never thought that the memories I’ve made would occur because to be honest I never thought I could be as happy as I was before. This year has been not just a learning experience but a soul searching experience. Finding myself again. Not that I was lost but I needed to find how to make myself happier, to make myself stronger and to make myself love everything around me again….viewing the bigger picture that I thought wasn’t there.

This year, I got healthier. I became the woman and the size I never thought I could be. This year, I discovered true friendships. People I never thought I would talk to, never even knew made the most impact on my life and gave me such great advice to go off of. They taught me sometimes the answer isn’t wrong but the question is, to never go back to what broke you but to thrive from it, to embrace the wild side of life and that “Weak people revenge, Strong people forgive and that Wise people ignore”. This year, I’ve learned not to be bitter over life’s disappointments but to move on from those that have disappointed you. Over the year I learned that sometimes it’s okay to have another glass wine or a glass of whiskey… Or 7 because life is too short to be so serious but most importantly I’ve learned how to love myself.

“And this is why I am the way I am.” She said frustrated to him. “It guys like him that waste my time, get my hopes up and leave me that make me into this aggressive and stone cold person that I am, Warren. And for the first time… I actually let my guard down.. The first time in a long time I let someone else get under my skin and now here I am on the phone at 3am with you pouring my heart out about someone who doesn’t even care. I’m so done with people not caring because I feel worthless, Warren. I’m so done with people not caring about me.” She said as tears of frustration fell from her face and trickled down her cheeks.

“No one sees you as worthless. Some people just suck that’s how it is.” He said