Goodbye in All Good Things

Two massive goodbyes this past week.

One was to the man I’ve been in love with for the past four years. I honestly didn’t expect it to be as hard as it was, since we’ve hardly seen each other for months, but the moment I saw tears in his eyes I fell apart. I’ve never been able to cope with him crying. It breaks me every time. Seems strange to say, but we’ve kind of bonded through tears over the years. Yes, that sounds really bizarre, but it’s true. He and I share a very, very deep emotional connection. I’d say he’s the only person I’ve known who has truly seen my soul and shown me his. Although obviously we are not meant to be together, I will always be grateful for this time we have shared and I hope the life he has chosen brings him great joy. He has certainly brought great joy to me, and although my heart was broken and will always ache a little, I don’t regret a single moment we had together. He changed my life. There’s no doubt that I am who I am today because of him. And I know I’ve had a similar effect on him.

I’m okay. I spent most of last year crying over him because it hurt too much to let go, but that process is over now, despite all the tears on Saturday. It was nice to know that we still have our connection, that we could stand amidst a group, on opposite sides, and still have an intense conversation through our eyes. That’s what I miss most of all, I think, that sense of such a deep connection with someone else. That incredible intimacy.

And if we clung a little too hard in our final hug goodbye....well....the thing is, it WAS goodbye. Most likely forever.

Unexpectedly, another goodbye happened at the same time. I don’t know if you remember my old friend Annette. We’ve been friends since we both moved to Hong Kong in 2006, we were best friends, extremely close. Then two years ago she started turning against me, tried to destroy my entire life and take all our friends away from me. It didn’t work, but on top of Jon dying and the relationship above taking place it was extremely difficult to cope with. Having your former best friend turn into a vicious enemy is a shock, especially when she starts bullying you and making your life hell any time you’re near her and you share all your friends and have all your activities (both work and extracurricular) in common.

After a year and a half of her over-the-top beastly behaviour, which turned into me just ignoring her as best as I could whenever I had no choice but to be in her vicinity, all of a sudden on Saturday she approached my mother apparently wanting to make up with me and too afraid to approach me. So I emailed her on Monday, because I knew she’d never make contact first, basically to let her know that I was open to discussion - because, honestly, I miss my friend so much. She replied the next day with a rant of all the terrible things I supposedly did to her (not a single one of which is true) and how awful a friend I was and how much damage I caused her, pages and pages of it, which was such a shock to receive after what she’d told my mother.

But the good thing was it finished off the residual hope I had that one day we could make up and be friends again. It was stupid of me to even think that, I know, given how horrifically she’s treated me during the past two years, but I really struggle to give up on people and since all our friends ended up choosing me (I was surprised to find out how few of them actually liked her), she’s been very much ostracised and I’ve been worried about her.

Not anymore. I’m done. It’s over. It seems like the friend I thought I had never really existed since she was apparently hating me for all those years we were friends for all these bizarre reasons that she never bothered to even talk to me about. That’s the most upsetting thing, to discover that she never really even was my friend.

So, yeah. Two massive, massive goodbyes to two people I loved very much. One I will cherish forever in my heart and the other I have happily released.

I feel like all the bonds of my past are now gone. It’s only onwards from here with joy and enthusiasm. I leave for New Zealand in ten days, for seven glorious weeks by the sea, plenty of writing time as well as time to plan my future.

Exciting times.