Here Lies The Truth.
I’ve always thought that lovers were the ones who come and go, not friends. But it’s like the older I get, the harder it is to hold on to people who refuse to grow with age. I'm moving on, and you're just stuck. People ask me about you like there’s been a death. But wasn't there?
We mourn the living like we mourn the dead. We say things in the moment like, YOU'RE DEAD TO ME! and believe it. Perception is reality.
That person no longer exists in my world.
This is called Ambiguous Grief– loss without the sensation of finality that accompanies death. Yet I am completely convinced you are gone.
My friends and I had a friend in highschool whom we graduated with and we were a core friend group. He was a gem. He held a room's attention the second he walked in it. He was a wonderful friend to me. As we got older, he stayed the same, and it started to show. His friends were in highschool although he wasn't, and when he did befriend someone his age, i’m afraid it changed him for the worse. He wasn't the boy we knew– he was now this manipulative person who invited this equally manipulative friend into our lives and our apartments, and competed with him for attention. We watched him change before our eyes. He used to have a drug problem. He was almost five years clean until he started hanging out with this person. We tried to save him from himself, but when it was too late, we waved the white flag.
We talk about him sometimes … in the past tense.
More recently, I clicked with someone who I thought would be someone I could really be friends with. We had real conversations and related on so many levels. We shared secrets, joints, and dances. We’d get coffee and talk for hours. It's hard to find that these days.
It’s been 6 months since we’ve spoken.
Time has a silly way of showing you that you have moved on. Like really moved on. I haven't thought about you in ages yet I'm compelled enough by your ghost to write this.
We hold grudges because it's easier than forgiving. We force ourselves to forget when it’s painful to remember. I want to forgive. I want to dish out second chances on silver platters and exhume our past but I can't. There is no use in digging up what's buried. Your headstone has already been set.
HERE LIES THE TRUTH
Whether or not you truly cared about me, I know for a fact that I did. I cared so much to the point of extinction. Look at us– we are no longer. If I have to attend your burial, I will, but under one condition: you attend our wake.
OUR EULOGY
TODAY WE GATHER WITH HEAVY HEARTS, BURDENED BY THE WEIGHT OF THE LOSS OF [REDACTED]. WE SHALL NOT REMEMBER [REDACTED] IN THEIR DEATH, BUT IN THEIR LIFE. [REDACTED] WAS AN EXTRAORDINARY BEAM OF LIGHT. A KIND SOUL TURNED SOUR BY THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES.
HM. WHAT A SHAME. LET US PRAY.
ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST
WE COULDN'T COPE
BUT NOW WE MUST.
AMEN.
People don't just come back from the dead. The dead don't just rise.
They are summoned.
We want so bad for them to return all the while knowing what once was can never be. I can't be your friend again knowing what I know now. The Zoe you loved is also dead. She's been reborn into someone that thinks for herself, and who isn't so naive to fall back into your rigor mortis grasp again.
This is my year of change. Of growth. A year of new opportunities, experiences and new people. I refuse to allow myself to backtrack. I’ve always been terrified of the paranormal anyway.
Put the ouija board down. Let the dead rest. It is not your job to give them a life again. Only to keep living yours.
xo, zo
