#goodbyefornow

Catipillar :]

Welcome Home by @partycoffin !

( if you can, please go check out their Ko-fi )

To the my autumn 'Ballad Prince' 🍁

my King 🤴🏻...

Happy 5️⃣th anniversaryy! I don't know anyone with a voice like yours! 😍 Thank you for sharing such an amazing talent with everyone! 💙

Im sure you noticed that i didn’t add the label, boyfriend, fiance, or husband, nor did i put any other category type. Im sure that you think its for some horrible reason but the truth is that you were so much more to me than any single title could have ever covered. You were my best friend, my shoulder to lean on, My conscience, voice of reason, my crazy side, and carefree personality, my fiance when it came to wedding planning, my husband during the day to day, my boyfriend on those rare but carefree late night rides and trips to the drive thru, you were my Daddy when i needed guidance and my everything all the time. I changed so much of my life to be this person that i thought would make you happy forever that would always be enough for you but that wasnt how it worked out. We were so happy and enjoying life, I felt innocent love, real love that didnt want anything from me, but that i would do anything for. Like when your dog went missing right after we moved and i spent hours walking the neighborhood, and ended up lost in some gated community. Do you remember? 

But then i guess life happened. And the stressful things that were so common started to pull at the threads, and we started to fight. You’d lie I’d catch you and you’d apologize and tell me that you wouldn’t do it again but you would and you did many more times. Id say that i would be understanding or that i wouldnt fight with you anymore but each time i did. I would compromise on my hard no’s till eventually they became softly spoken suggestions, but they would be screamed at the top of my lungs during each and every fight. I stopped telling you what i needed because when i did you didnt seem to care, or understand, or even hear me. I tried to convince you that something needed to change you would always find a reason that you were not to blame. “you aren’t the same person that you were before” you would say to me, “do you even like me?” i would ask you as i couldn’t stand the thought of you saying that you didnt love me anymore, but if you liked me then that left the door open for love right? I NEVER considered that you could love someone and not like them, but now i know. Each day it got worse and worse and every time i could see the issues plain and clear. I tried to tell you what was going on and i tried to tell you what i knew would help but you wanted to blame the problems on everyone else. You stopped helping, you stopped caring, you started getting madder at me than i thought that you could. I couldnt take a deep breath with out you getting mad. You spied on me and got mad if i pointed it out. You took all of your calls in private, never put your phone down, but would follow me if i walked out of the room to speak on the phone because it was too loud, you had to hear everything i said, wanted every call on speaker phone or your head right next to mine so you could hear everything and then tried to say you werent listening. You went through every part of my phone, computer, books, bags, car, everything and lord help me if i mentioned that you were doing it because that meant i was hiding something. I kept trying to be who you wanted but that person was constantly changing and never the same. It just wasnt possible and you pointed out all the time that i wasnt doing what you wanted, and that i wasnt perfect. I was smothering, drowning, dying and everytime i tried to get your help it got worse. You told me that you were the one suffering and that i didnt care but everything i was doing i did to help you. You just never saw it and i didnt know how to show you.

So many times you “left me”, so many times you called me a whore and told me to get out of “your” house. So many times you talked so much shit to me and accused me of so many things and kept me just far enough away that you could do what you wanted but close enough to keep me from leaving.

Now I have left. You spent this week hunting me down, begging to stay with me, and telling me how much you had changed and that if i just let you move in with me now it would all be ok. You couldnt go home because i wasnt there. Just for one night you didnt want to sleep in your car anymore. Everything would be different but it wasnt. You didnt think that i saw that the changes that you were making were still beneficial for only you, you didnt hear anything that i said and often told me that you wanted me to talk to you and spell it out for you but when i tried you didnt listen, didnt let me talk, didnt care that i was hurting because i had something that you didnt and it wasnt fair. Because in order for us to be able to fix our relationship and ourselves we had to do everything your way nothing had changed and if i say anything about it, you point out that i havent let you move in so how can you be a partner or show anything if i dont follow your rules. But you couldnt hear or understand anything that i had been trying to say and didnt care to hear anything over than what you wanted. So here we are everything is fucked and broken and i dont think that it will ever be the same, but that is ok. I dont want to same, i want and deserve better. There is less stress, less hassle, less mess and i feel better during the times that you arent being a jerk or blowing up my phone. Sometimes i still miss you, sometimes i find a song that breaks my heart and i cry....but even though it hurts, even though i know that giving in would be easier and i could manage, i could survive, i want more. I want happiness. I want joy and laughter and peace. I want to want to comes home. But i know that this will not be the case anytime soon, or maybe ever again. I was going to keep all the wedding stuff because i just knew we could work this out...but now i dont think that we can. Live a great life. i hope that you have better luck next time.  I hope that you find peace and happiness that you find responsibility and a path to honesty within yourself and with others. 

As I wrap up my last night in the shop, I can’t help but feel so content. 

When I can’t decide whether to get a book or not, I always read the first line, and if I feel compelled enough to keep reading, then I know it’s the one. I know that this is probably not an innovative idea in choosing books, but it’s mine, so I’m happy to leave it in The Open Book. 

This place has been a fulfillment of a dream that I’ve had since childhood, and it’s truly an honor to have had the opportunity to be in this town, see the sights, sell the books, and, most of all, meet the people. 

I know that I’ll be back one day (because this is not just a place you leave behind forever), but I’ll miss the stillness of the quiet book shop when the summer sun has (finally) set. I’ll miss the smell of the books, and all the light switches. I’ll miss the joyful gasps of little girls who proudly show their parents the poetry they’ve written. I’ll miss counting foreign change. I’ll miss the little bell that rings when people enter, and how it always made confetti in my heart. I’ll miss customers asking about books that the store has, even though I’ve only been here for a day, and I have no clue (yet). I’ll miss the key that unlocks the door. The hidden notes from past owners. The map on the wall. The hello’s. The thank you’s. The smiles when they enter and leave. 

I will miss this dream. 

As this chapter closes, I’m happy and content, and I’m filled with joy at the anticipation for what’s next. 

If you’re reading this, and you’ve previously owned The Open Book, thank you for the beauty you’ve contributed and left behind. 

If you’re reading this, and you’re dreaming of owning The Open Book, keep dreaming/hoping/praying/wishing because your time will come, and it will be worth the wait!

If you’re reading this, and you’re from this beautiful town, thank you for all that you do. Wigtown may be small, but it is making a mark on every visitor who comes here, and it creates a ripple that follows us home. Thank you. 

And finally, let me finish by quoting the author who, since my childhood, taught me to first love reading:  

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing-- to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from-- my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.” 

-Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis