When it really is goodbye

"Paesi che non ho mai

veduto e vissuto con te,

adesso sì li vivrò.

Con te partirò

su navi per mari

che, io lo so,

no, no, non esistono più"

-Time to Say Goodbye 

(Sarah Brightman & Andrea Bocelli)

Funny how things turn out in the end. Just goes to show how you can never truly see the finish line until you're there.

Can exes be friends? A question that I've repeatedly asked myself for the past 9 months. 

In the days, weeks that followed that heart-wrenching day, I stubbornly insisted that we remained friends so that we'll continue to be in each other's lives. That was last August.

Fast forward to March. After not hearing from him for a solid 3 months, we met up and called a truce. I've come a long way since August. I didn't think it possible but I've come to a point where it doesn't hurt anymore. I think about what happened and I'll never forget the excruciating pain he put me through with everything that he did but they're now merely fragments of my memories. He leaving me alone for all those months gave me the time to distance whatever I was feeling and even though old me didn't like that one bit, new me see that I am strong enough to stand on my own and that he no longer dictates my happiness. I can't truly describe it but I finally felt liberated. It's an amazing feeling. Talking to him then, it was good knowing that me being happy didn't hang on whatever happened next. I've no strong desire for him to be in my life but if he makes the effort, I won’t oppose it. It’s strange when I so clearly remember how much I wanted for us to stay friends after we broke up – that was me trying to cling onto something that was long gone. 

Fast forward to May. I don't think the truce worked very well at all. I don't think I was asking for the moon when I said to make an effort. After all this time, it didn't matter to me anymore whether we were friends or not but after meeting up in March, I somewhat expected a little more from someone that shredded my heart all those months ago. It was then I realised: if I'm always going to expect for him to do something that he clearly won't, there was no point of pretending that it'll work out in the end.

And so I said goodbye. 

It was odd that when I finally said it, not an ounce of emotion rolled through me. This was the end and not a wave of nostalgia or a hint of sadness crossed my mind when I said goodbye to the one person that used to mean the world to me. 

When it really is goodbye – the final page of our book. I would not have had it any other way.