I hate being the one who walks away from people. I like it when the other person does the walking away—it’s easier for me to rationalize never going back. You don’t have to reject me twice; once is enough, and you’ll never hear from me again. But when I have to be the one to walk away to save myself…that’s a whole other ball game.
I like to believe that if you stay long enough or grow a connection strong enough, it will all work out the way you wish. Wrong. People love to waste time, so in order not to waste mine, I have to learn to walk away. It hurts—I’ll admit it. I’ll bawl my eyes out the moment they finally walk away and I’m alone in the decision I made. But then I have to remind myself it’s either minimal hurt now or being stabbed in the chest later.
I don’t really like the later aspect, so I walk away. And when I walk away, I have to make a promise to myself to never go back on the decision I made—no matter how I feel or how badly I wish they were back. I have to stand my ground and pretend like it’s easy. It’s not easy. But I can’t toy with them like a yo-yo, pulling them up and then letting them fall over and over again, until inevitably we are both hurt—probably me more, because I can’t seem to keep my chill when I have feelings.
It’s like an ache where you know the right choice is to walk away and choose yourself so you don’t end up getting strung along, but in the back of my head all I can think about is losing a connection I hadn’t felt in years.
Anyways, on nights like this—when I want to reach out and say I made a mistake—I remind myself that if I can’t keep the promise I made to myself to stay away, then who will I keep promises for? And then I just stop… put my “what if” thoughts away and exist within the reality that is.
And that is on growing—and somewhat hating the process.