Goodbye Again

Written on my last visit. At the airport.

I can't quite figure out why, but I feel like my heart is breaking, like the love of my life is being left behind as I sit here waiting to fly away to a place not so far but far enough to be termed "foreign" by your heart.

A great love is in this place and for some reason I never opened my heart to it this last time. I was too afraid, too fragile maybe, too tender, worried that my entire being would split into two if I let myself give in to this place even in the slightest, even for a moment. It is the most equisitely beautiful, most heart-wrenching place I have ever been. And why??

I grew up in this place, my heart learning to break as I grew older, as I learned to understand that the pain and the screaming and the tears weren't supposed to be a part of my childhood. Once I finally learned that everything was wrong, I learned how to break down and fall to my knees, unable to cry hard enough to stop the pain, unable to mold it into something I could understand or measure. I learned to curl into a ball with my forehead on the floor and sob until my body forced my heart to go unconcious and pushed my mind into sweet sweet sleep.

I'm leaving this place, after a short visit, and I'm wondering as I sit here in the airport why my heart aches so intensely and why the back of my throat is harvesting a teetering gag reflex. Why do I still love this place?

The trees were waving goodbye to me as I drove down the highway to the airport, all their leaves moving and flowing together like a wave in the see, or a flock of birds in the air. That was really the moment I opened my eyes to the beauty of this place. I finally let something in and now I'm cracking in all the most painful places.

The potential stabs at me, sharp and exquisite. This place could have been such a wonderful place. I could have learned about love, instead of having to wait years and years to discover the precious beauty that comes with sincerity and kindness. I could have opened my mind to the beauty that surrounds me. We could have been a happy family. We could have. I could have. The "could have" ... what sharp and striking, bitter words.

And now I sit here, leaving it all behind once again, closing the doors to the potential and shutting the blinds to what could have been. My heart aches for it, reaches out to it, and I deny access, turning my face toward my new home and the love of my life and more happiness than I ever learned could be possible.