Remember the first time we were introduced to each other twenty years ago? Twenty wild and crazy years ago. My mom asked if I wanted to meet you. I said, “No,” but she went ahead with it anyway. Gosh, I was so young, still I have the most vivid memories of being immensely intimidated and awkward, memories which include tripping, slipping, and falling on my butt on our first date.
Of course, no one thought that we would make it, though here we are two decades and a million and one laughs, tears, and heartaches later. That said, you have led me into my highest highs and held my hand and healed me in my lowest lows. I have become so much more with you than I ever could have become by myself. You have, undeniably, been the most beautifully volatile element to my story. Your mark on my life, my dear, is untouchable. Nevertheless, you are fiercely untamable…and I can’t do this anymore.
Don’t get me wrong. I love you, I really do, but lately there has been an uneasiness I can’t seem to shake. I hear the footsteps of change approaching, and I shudder with each thud knowing that the odds of us changing for the better are just as probable as the odds of us changing for the worse. I desperately desire that our situation would change, though if that would mean being separated from you, I’d rather keep swaying in your illusory embrace to the song of mediocrity for just a bit longer. Still as the footsteps get louder, I know that I can’t make you want to stay. I’m done with that. For though I have listened to you, followed after you, changed for you, planned around you, worked hard for you, spent all of my money on you, sweat for you, bled for you, and cried because of you for so long, I don’t want to have to make you want me.
So tell me the truth, my love, is it me? Is it you? Is it our timing? Is it us and just not meant to be? Is this finally the year you will commit to me or, at the very least, commit to leaving? Or shall we forever remain slow dancing in this burning room–swaying, 1, 2, fighting, 3, 4, hurting, 5, 6, tarrying, 7, 8?
Thus in what may very well be our final moments together, I resign all expectations of you. You are free to go as much as you are welcome to stay. All the same, for as long as we shall continue to move in step, I will dance a little closer and cling to you a little tighter, not because I will never let you go but because if I had to, if you wanted me to, I would let you leave. I would let you walk away and hurt me, again.
And so the choice is yours, my love, my pain, and terpsichorean mistress.
What will it be?
