The Hardest Thing Is Letting Go
By Enano Vivas
I’ve loved someone with a passion most people won’t ever understand. She was, for me, perfect. Everything from the way she thought about her appearance to how she asked to be treated. She made me a feminist and I relished every minute of it.
We fell in love on El Camino de Santiago, a 650 KM walk through Spain. It was there, in isolation from most of the world, a place where we literally could not escape each other, that I knew that this woman would be the one for me. We fought and screamed and loved and conversed and realized that we were imperfectly perfect for each other.
We lasted almost three years together. I left again last year for el camino, my second one and first one alone, to clear my head after a brutal year of teaching. She had a job and couldn’t join me. I look back now and wish I had fought to take her with me. I wish I had fed her initial impulses and told her to quit and go with me. I don’t know if it would have changed anything but maybe.
The day I got back, my world ended. I surprised her and she surprised me. She didn’t know I was coming back early (or so I thought, her roommate informed her a few days prior). She broke my heart that day. Left me for a woman. I’ve never felt a pain like that one. Heartbreak isn’t appropriate enough. Imagine the most physically unbearable pain you’ve felt, multiply by infinity and make it emotional, all in the brain. That’s an inkling of what it felt like. I don’t think someone who hasn’t had love and lost it will be able to understand, but if you have then this should resonate. What she didn’t know is that I was going to propose to her. I had the ring made special for her; carved of wood with a few blue stones placed in it. She liked that kind of stuff and it would be special for her. I never got to give her that ring, or tell her about it.
She hates me now, or at least seems to. The last communication I got from her, she let me know how much happier she was with her new girlfriend and how much I would never understand. I think I still hold out hope that we’ll find each other again. I know its stupid and I should let go but its not in me to do so. I’ve never been much of a quitter and always liked to dream and dream big. I love her still but a year later my hope is starting to fade a bit and it scares the shit out of me. I want and don’t want to let go. I want her to read this and come back.
Its true, the hardest thing is knowing when to quit and when to let go.