Balloon Strings

There are so many versions of a particular conversation I’ve let play out in my head as I drive in silence from EI house to EI house or when I am in my garden using the techniques you taught me what seems like many lifetimes ago now.

I think about our road trips, those french fries and the flatbread feasts we had so many deep conversations over. Conversations about life, what we wanted and what we learned was broken about ourselves.

We didn’t know it at the time but those conversations were the kryptonite in our story.

Our friendship was forced at first then bonded together by two significantly broken girls. Those years I wouldn’t trade for anything. You helped me recognize the pieces of me that weren’t truly me. You taught me so many things I still use in my daily life to this day.

You became my person, my soulmate.

But the thing is, as we healed our own brokenness, we slowly started to break that bond that once held us so tightly together.

I knew in my gut the night you told me you were leaving, that was the beginning of the end for us. I put on a happy “we’ll figure it out” face but I think a part of me already knew.

Then one by one you started severing balloon strings like I was a weight holding you to a place you didn’t belong anymore. With each heart breaking comment or harsh word spoken a balloon string between us was cut. But from where I stand way over here now I realize you didn’t even recognize you were holding the scissors.

My heart felt as though it had been ripped from my chest repeatedly over those last few months. I realized I was mourning my person as she became someone I didn’t recognize anymore. It’s the strangest thing to mourn a person who’s still physically alive. I couldn’t begin to tell you the amount of tears I had shed in my car driving to work, and alone in the darkness of my showers. The ache in my stomach and the fear in my mind as I felt the abandonment both in our friendship and in our partnership. My sadness eventually turned to so much anger. It filled my soul and I became numb to it after a while. The sadness and anger were made up of so many reasons I know now you didn’t see as you were trying to find your pieces.

Some days I think about what would have been if things had played out differently and our balloons were still intertwined. Would we still take road trips and scream sing the lyrics, would we share cups of french fries, would we go back to our favorite spot and get funny looks when we order enough food for 5 grown men?

But sadly that’s not our reality.

Our kids won’t grow up together, there will be no shared stories amongst grey haired women in rocking chairs and there will be no new memories made.

But I will always cherish the ones tucked away in the safest place in my mind.

I will appreciate the lessons learned from when you were my person, and from your absence.

I know I am the villain in your story, and for a while you were the villain in mine but maybe there is no villain at all.

Maybe, just maybe those balloons needed to be set free for our souls to finish healing on their own.

Maybe that was the only way.

And maybe one day a passing glance at one of those beautiful balloons we blew up together won’t hurt so damn much.

But even if that day never comes, just know I’m cheering you on in this new life you’ve created for yourself. I hope your brokenness has been healed, as mine has. I hope you love the life you have now, just as I do.

I hope you still scream sing lyrics in the car with the windows down and enjoy gas station french fries from a cup.

So much love from way over here.

Your used-to-be person,

-M