The Ghost of Goodbyes

There are times in life when you simply do not get the goodbye that you expect. All you might want is the word itself, but it never comes. A person simply vanishes, as though they were never in your life to begin with.

Sometimes it is fate who robs you of goodbye. Death swoops in to take a loved one and all you are left with are ashes and unspoken words.

Sometimes it is inertia the inertia of two lives drifting apart, so that goodbye is irrelevant.

But sometimes there is an opportunity for goodbye. You open the door to say goodbye, but just as soon as you've ushered this person out, the door slams in your face and you are left with nothing but an empty room.

This is the goodbye I did not receive this past week.

I have never spoken of my romantic life on this blog, for a few reasons. I am still processing the why of this- the wanting to keep something personal to myself, the fear that things would not work out, the fear of discovery, but perhaps most of all, the fear of what I might uncover about this relationship if I wrote about it. Because when I write, I discover just who I am and what I feel.

To start out, I will say that I feel a certain amount of shame surrounding this relationship. Shame for being completely duped and choosing to continue with the relationship when most women would have jumped ship. He had been full of goodbyes, excuses, and false promises- promises I had believed.

In all honesty, it was as though I was never in a relationship all along. We never did the things most couples do- spending weekends together, going to parties together, meeting friends and family. All I had were dates. And then he moved away, and all I had were phone calls. I never even had a photograph of us together.

I wish I had seen the light much sooner, but I had always heard how relationships take work, and I believed I needed to have faith. I have since learned that someone must give you a reason to have faith in them, that they must follow through on their word.

And so last week, when he did not even call or text on Christmas, I said goodbye. In an email. I'm the kind of person who needs closure, and I would have preferred the finality of an in-person goodbye. Sadly, I was not allowed this luxury. When someone does not welcome you into their life, an electronic goodbye is all you can do. So I did. And I waited.

A week later, and I have not received a goodbye from him. He is gone, and like a ghost it is as though he was never there at all. Like I must have dreamed the whole thing.

Now I want to banish this ghost from my life, so that I can move forward into this year, unhaunted. Releasing this relationship in 2013 has created more space for me to love and respect myself in 2014. My wish for this year is that it will be full of hellos and empty of ghosts.

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