Do I miss you or is it just the dairy?
- amandaylee
- Dec 11, 2022
- 5 min read
It was midnight on a Saturday. I was shivering, naked on my bathroom floor, curled in fetal position, calling every person in LA I could think within a set radius from my apartment, wondering how the hell I ended up in this position. Maintenance issues in the apartment above mine caused water to leak into my apartment, and the landlord inconveniently shut the water off for the night while I was mid-shower. When no one answered my calls, there was one person I almost called but didn’t. At that moment, I decided it would be better to lie helplessly on the floor, soaking wet.
If I were to call that one person, I thought, I might get a warm shower, but still feel cold inside.
It was 4PM on a Friday afternoon. After a meeting with a friend, I left the café only to see a text from my mother asking me to call her. The skies were unusually grey and the air was slightly misting as a precursor to the rain that would come. Once I was on the phone, she said, “Amanda, she died this morning." My mother was referring to our family dog, my childhood companion. The mist began to turn into little droplets that resembled tears. I hung up and cried in my car.
It was 2AM in a Denny’s. I was keen on updating my friend who I had not seen in months on the events of my life. I had recently spiraled and found myself looking through social media searching for answers I knew I would not find. Yet, my desperation for concrete clarity amid uncertainty pulled me back in.
Under the glaring lights and holding the brightly colored laminated menus, I began recounting the details of my emotional state.
“I was in agony these past few days. My body shut down and the grief came back again. I thought I had made progress in moving on, but I was in so much pain,” I said to him. “The only real difference I noticed was my increased consumption of dairy. First, it was pizza at work, then I made carbonara and had ice cream. And I normally don’t eat dairy. So maybe it was the dairy making me emotional.”
“It’s concerning that you were in that much pain. I only suspect that this wave of emotion may come again,” he said to me with a calmness that came naturally with his gentle demeanor. “It’s just very unlucky your situation. Statistically, maybe out of 500 or 1000 people, you found the one with that kind of baggage.”
He swirled his Oreo milkshake as he continued to share his thoughts with me.
“Would you like to expedite the process of moving forward?”
“What does that look like?"
“Unfollow him. Block him,” he said with the conviction of someone who uses social media solely for inspiration and does not have the nefarious addiction to pain that my brethren have.
If only it were that easy.
“The problem if I do that is that I know I would go out of my way to find what I’m looking for. Plus, I need my accounts to market my writing. Otherwise, I would have deleted my socials a long time ago.”
His solution was simple. “Then keep your accounts active for your business but unfollow him.”
We continued to chat as I picked at the stack of caramel banana pancakes he had ordered.
“I mean literally anything can happen. I could die tomorrow, but I wouldn’t be that lucky,” I said dryly.
His tone shifted as he asked, “What do you mean by that?”
It had been a long time since I expressed these sentiments to people. Since I was truly so happy with the new life I had cultivated for myself, I thought my nihilist tendencies were long gone. Grief seems to be the key to unlocking that sort of humor again.
“Gee, I wonder why I’m so sad. Oh yeah, my dog died.”
Some days, I wake up with less pain in my chest. Feeling lighter, almost, with the weight of your absence no longer crushing me. I knew I was moving on when I could listen to songs and enjoy them just for songs that would no longer make me feel sad or remind me of you. When I was losing interest in seeing your uneventful updates and not feeling triggered by them. When I could see you for who you are right now and not what you could be. Or what I wanted you to be. When I was able to reflect and reevaluate and see the situation for what it is without judgment, without placing any sort of moral value on it, or without adding insult to injury.
After all, good people don’t necessarily make good friends, lovers, business partners, or good relationships. Good people don't mean a good fit. And it’s not necessarily anyone’s fault.
Good people don’t always meet your needs. Good people don’t even make good choices.
There were many times when I wondered if I was repeating a history of unhappy relationships that were prevalent in my upbringing, but as I’ve been told, even awareness of the cycle changes the pattern. And I chose to walk away.
Sometimes things fall apart to come together. Sometimes they fall apart to let something new in. It just depends. And yes, anything can happen.
Things can change, people can change, and your needs and desires can change. A pause today does not mean there is no future tomorrow. Releasing attachments to outcomes and the need for certainty simply means you are free.
This is what letting go looks like. For now.
“Do not love half lovers Do not entertain half friends Do not indulge in works of the half talented Do not live half a life and do not die a half death If you choose silence, then be silent When you speak, do so until you are finished Do not silence yourself to say something And do not speak to be silent If you accept, then express it bluntly Do not mask it If you refuse then be clear about it for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance Do not accept half a solution Do not believe half truths Do not dream half a dream Do not fantasize about half hopes Half a drink will not quench your thirst Half a meal will not satiate your hunger Half the way will get you no where Half an idea will bear you no results Your other half is not the one you love It is you in another time yet in the same space It is you when you are not Half a life is a life you didn't live, A word you have not said A smile you postponed A love you have not had A friendship you did not know To reach and not arrive Work and not work Attend only to be absent What makes you a stranger to them closest to you and they strangers to you The half is a mere moment of inability but you are able for you are not half a being You are a whole that exists to live a life not half a life”
-Khalil Gibran
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