Every little beat that I feel in my heart
Seems to repeat what I felt at the start
Each little sign tells me that I adore you
Louise

-Dean Martin

“Love is taking a few steps backward, maybe even more…to give way to the happiness of the person you love.”

-Winnie the Pooh

Once in a while we make a really big decision, one that can have the ability to break our heart. Five years ago I made such a decision, but five years ago this decision didn’t feel like it could break my heart. It felt like one I needed to make. Tonight I realized that for me, the decision felt inevitable. I think it always will to me.

Sometimes a line is a straight line to someone. Sometimes a line can be a straight line away from someone. Sometimes you have to hope your line is a circle or at least a triangle.

Life sometimes has a way to reveal things to you, only to have them covered back over with none other than life itself. I keep telling myself that you shouldn’t doubt in the dark what you saw clearly in the light. I keep telling myself that if you give up something amazing, clearly there is something else out there that will at least be equally amazing. I keep telling myself it was real. I keep telling myself the stories I have written weren’t just deleted like they didn’t matter. I keep telling myself a lot of things.

Growing up I thought once you made a friend, they stay your friend. No one ever tells you how life will put 1,394 things in your path so the friends drift away. No one ever tells you that you will go through life changing triumphs and tragedies that make friends be able to exist without you where once that would have been inconceivable. No one tells you a lot of things about being a friend. You have to find out by being one.

I do know this. I miss my friend.

Learning to live without a friend is like learning to live without a piece of your heart. I’m not sure you ever learn how. You just live because there isn’t an alternative. You learn how to be okay by practicing being okay.

I used to write things because I had reasons to write things. Now, I have reasons to stay quiet. It’s easier. When you open yourself up to tell someone how you feel, it can appear to them as though you are fighting. As it turns out, sometimes you just care so much you can’t be rational. Love is irrational. I will stand by that statement as long as I’m alive.

When a person says, “I don’t want to fight,” I have discovered they generally can’t have the conversation at the moment, or they don’t want to be wrong. I’ve heard it a few times from a few friends. Well, sometimes it is okay to fight. When someone wants to fight for you, maybe learning to listen is part of being a human.

The greatest gift you can give someone is listening. Unless, you can’t.

Then, I guess, that’s okay too. It won’t really change anything.

Probably.