Ocean

Just was watching an episode of 1883 and reached a part (no spoilers) of a character dying when they shouldn’t. In grief, their partner sat beside their grave with a gun in their hand, wishing to join them. Then came the captain of the wagon train and he said something I likely will never forget:

“When you love someone you trade a piece of your soul with them, and they with you. That’s why losing them hurts so much.”

I still can cry at the drop of a hat when I think of her. The hurt and missing my best friend is worse now than missing the rest of it. She knew me better than anyone, or so I thought.

But she didn’t know how much I loved her. She didn’t care that I risked my life traveling across the country to be with her. That I gave up being close to my child so we could pursue our dreams. That I sobbed every day for leaving him. It didn’t matter, how much I showed her I loved her, and insecurities won. Her fear of my past won.

And now I wonder if when I live my days going forward if the part of her inside me still breathes. If she will see the absolute glory of my happiness when I take to the wild alone, without her.

The tug of the piece of me I placed inside her still pulls from half a country away. But it is the little slip of a wave after the ocean crashes a tidal gush upon the shore. Just an echo that slips a few bits of sand, nothing more.

I’ve a hurricane building within me and it’s all of my own making. Soon I won’t even notice the bit of her water trying to drown me, for I’m the entire ocean.