When you say goodbye

I said goodbye today. I said goodbye and they call me crazy. "Why did you do that?" they say. "Why did you do that?"

I did it because I had to. I've been trying to say goodbye for months. But how do you say goodbye to the man who saves you over and over and over? Who brings you back to reality, or reality back to you?

He's the kind of guy who can charm your mother and horrify her at the same time. He is also the kind of guy who will go with you to IHOP at 1 in the morning, and take your film to get developed while you're in class. He is the kind of guy who will come get you when you slept in and were really grumpy and didn't really want to talk to him but were late to work anyway, who will smile as you look at yourself in his dark business man glasses and say "have a good day" even when you growl at him.

And I said goodbye. I said goodbye because I had to. I love him. I do. But love is not static. It isn't archaic. And it isn't permanent. Once it exists, it stays, if only in a memory in passing. A hastily scribbled note holds more of a human heart than a cold rock on a ring. "Hang in there" he wrote, and I hung. I hung for a long long long time. I hung and my arms hurt.

I fell. I fell and skinned my knees. I fell and skinned my knees and it hurts to get up. It hurts, and I'm getting up anyway. I looked up and saw him sitting over there. He fell too. He smiled sympathetically and then I got up. I stood, looking up at the tree and started to climb. When I looked down he was still sitting there, watching me.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Fine" I answered. We looked at each other and I nodded. I could see in his hazel eyes and I could see it there. I knew. It was time. I needed to go. I needed to climb. I needed to climb and go. I reached and turned.

"Go ahead" he said. He sat back on his hands, idly crossing his ankles, resting. "Go ahead."

I nodded and looked up into the lofty branches. "Goodbye. Oh, and try and write some good poetry."

I could hear his laugh. It was the rich one that I loved. The real one. "Will do."

Goodbye.

Departure

She said "I hope some day you feel you can talk to me again. I don't know what happened that there is this gulf in our communication."

Anger rises within me when I see that. She doesn't know? What does that mean? Was that someone else who sent me those hateful emails? Was it a joke? I bled tears for those words. I bled tears and bruised my knees. And now she comes to me to rip me open again.

Is it her fault? It is me who hasn't been answering the phone.

But it is also me who has been reading postmodern literature every waking moment, creating the most brilliant papers that I never knew I could produce. I am the one subdued and careful, who smiles sparingly. I am the one who never laughs anymore. It is my soul that is racked with grief and sorrow, who fights away apathy and indifference.

It is me who fell to my knees, calling for the angels. This broken corpse is me, who walks among the remnants of glory. Winds swirl around me, taking my story to add to its collection. This is where the fallen prince walked too, they hissed. He cut his feet on those mountains when he climbed. Here is where the fallen people lay camped for forty years. Here is where they were slain by their captives, strangers from the East. Here is where you kneel, dying, blood running from your veins, spilling into the sand which buries the dead for only some time.

She looks out the building facing the desert, searching for any sign of me. But I have left. She may follow, but she wont. She is afraid. She is lost, she says to herself, bitter resentment welling within her. Fool, that she may think to find salvation in a desert. She angrily threw her water after my trail, at the place where I had disappeared.

After a long absence

I may take a moment to explain a few things. Just as Calvin may have crashed a golf cart into a tree last night.

"I'M TIRED AND I'M MAD THAT I HAVE TO DEAL WITH YOUR INAPPROPRIATE CHOICES EVEN NOW WHEN YOU ARE AN ADULT. IF YOU DON'T LIKE BEING LDS DONT CLAIM TO BE ONE BUT IF YOU DO, START BEING NICER, CONSIDERATE OF THE FAMILY AND RESPONSIBLE. I APPRECIATE YOU SERVING MIRIAM BUT YOU DO IT GRUDGINGLY SO IT'S NOT TO YOUR CREDIT, WHEN YOU FACE JESUS HE WILL ASK YOU WHY YOU DIDN'T DO BETTER AND I WILL BE THERE SAYING I TRIED TO RAISE HER BUT SHE MADE HER OWN CHOICES."

I may have copied and pasted this from an email my mother may have sent me last week. I may have cried because of it. I may have printed the whole thing out and may have handed it over to Dan Muhlestein in the hallway of the JFSB the next morning. I may have been angry and yelled and screamed. I may have vented to my brand new roommate on her second night.

I may have made Camille mad. I may have been rude. I may care less for her than I may about the roll of unprimed canvas leaning against my bed. I may know that it may make her cry, and I may feel that crying is good for a person. She may have caused me more tears than I may have her.

I may have taken an alcoholic to a grocery store to buy food where he may have bought beer. I may have gone to a coffee shop with him and may have let him smoke a cigarette while discussing religion, faith, agency, and reactivation efforts. I may have listened when he told me about going to counseling with a group of porn addicts. I may have invited him to church with me.

I may have texted Calvin the other day while I may have been sitting in a basement to give me an excuse to leave after I didn't leave when I may have had the opportunity. When I did leave, my friend may have been mad that I felt I may have had to make up an excuse. I may have not wanted to tell him it was because I might have known I shouldn't have been there.

Calvin may have told me something like "You gotta do this on your own" and he may have really meant it. I may have known he wouldn't bail me out, and I might have known all along why. I may have known I would do it myself even before I may have asked him.

I may have actively decided to fail Whalquist's class because it may have been a waste of time. It may be the most worthless class offered, and BYU may owe me tuition money back for it. I may be morally opposed to busy work, and I may not really have cared to go to class. I may have felt I had no other option but to go. I may have struggled to get out of bed every single morning, I may have pretended to care. I may have given each and every one of my teachers a fraction of an effort. I may have read a newspaper in the back of Tuttle's class. I may have learned absolutely nothing. Cronin may have told me that that was not an option for me anymore. She may have demanded that I retake her class in the Spring, and I may have taken that as an answer to prayer. I may have asked specifically where to start in my efforts of putting things right. I may have felt the Spirit.
.
I may have gone to see my bishop. I may have gotten a blessing. I may have scheduled my life as an attempt to fix it. I may have said I was sorry. I may have bruised my knees kneeling on tile when I prayed. I may have called on God to take care of my problems so that I didn't have to deal with them anymore, and I might have gotten a no. I may have gotten a trust me and you may get through them.

I may have spent my day working and reading and gaining my intelligence back. I may have written all over my copy of All The Pretty Horses as I read it, which Dr. Cronin may have told me to read instead of The Road. I may have spent the last couple hours at the library atoning for my lack of concern all of last semester.

I may have said I'm sorry, and I may know that for the most part it falls on deaf ears. I may be writing to a specific person knowing that I may have made them angry. I may be perfectly willing to face God for this post, and I may know that I might be better off if I leave it alone and let it be buried by silence. I may know this post unearths years of secrets that may all have been buried by silence.

I may just have needed to tell someone, and no one at the same time, because I may feel like I am betraying the trust of multiple people by yelling to the world "I HAVE A PROBLEM." I may be going in for counseling on Monday.

Or I may not.