I Swear You Will Be Fine

I’ve probably written about our shared dreams and goals so many times that most of our readers can recite them by memory – but I’m about to write about them again, so bear with me.

Not long after you left, I came to the realization that I am not just saying a temporary goodbye to you. I’m also saying a temporary goodbye to all the dreams we had. All our goals, desires, and the scenarios we’d spent hours talking about – all of my fondest memories – I have to bid a temporary goodbye. Our goals were all happily intertwined. It helped that we met at school, studying the same thing, dreaming similar dreams. We could have worked together, lived together, stayed together for a long, long time – and I believe we will and are. I don’t think I could cope if I even thought for a minute that I’d have to do any of it without you. Even though it’s been past seven months now, the thought of saying a temporary goodbye is still so painful. Can you imagine how it’d be if I didn’t believe it was temporary?

Here are some of our temporary goodbyes:

I have said a temporary goodbye to our children – Athena Summer and Grayson Romulus. Again, readers would have memorized their names and initials by now; I speak about them as much as I can. If I could speak you and them into existence, even the silence between the stars would whisper your names. So of course they are the first on this list. We talked about hypothetical scenarios all the time, and our future kids were the “hot topic”.
“What happens if our child is…?”
“What if our child…”
“Will you allow our child to…”
“At what age can they…”
“What values do you think we should…”
It’s tough to accept that we will not be meeting them in this lifetime anymore. And as much as I love kids, I love you more, so I’ll wait. We will reunite one day – in another place, another time, another life – and we can play out the scenarios we so eagerly dreamed of. It is after all, only a temporary goodbye.

I have said a temporary goodbye to our dream house – with shelves of Lego (ours), a big and small dog (ours), floor-to-ceiling shelves of books (mine), an indoor gym (definitely yours), a walk-in closet (mine, oops), a piano (yours)… I have accepted that while it will never, ever be the same, I may still be able to afford a smaller apartment and own the things we dreamed of having. I’ll still put pictures of us all over, that’s for sure. I’ll still buy a piano, even though I don’t play. I’ll still have an indoor gym, maybe I’ll stick to the routine you curated for me. And I’ll definitely try to care for a big and small dog, named after what our children’s names would have been. It’ll truly never be the same, but it will be as close as it gets. And that is alright for now. For this is merely a temporary goodbye – and when I see you again, you’ll be ever so proud that I managed to do this for us.

I have said a temporary goodbye to our dream of owning a clinic together. We had plans to work together, running a place to help adolescents with their struggles. We imagined growing together personally, academically, and professionally. We talked about brainstorming cases the way we brainstormed our assignments. We dreamt of continuing to help each other become better people, better psychologists – something we’ve been doing since day one of our relationship, maybe even friendship. But this, too, is a dream I have to bid a temporary goodbye to.

And then there are all the little scenarios that we used to have so much fun chatting about:  
“We could make breakfast together for our children in the mornings! Oh, but what if they are picky? I hope they won’t be picky… They’ll definitely be picky… Look at us!”
“We can go for night walks in the park with the doggies… I’ll bring mosquito repellent!”
“I can’t wait for us to watch a horror movie in our new apartment with all the lights off… I think having the lights off is bad for our eyes… You know that that’s not scientifically proven, right?”
“I can’t wait for us to travel together. I can make a list of the places my family and I went to. I can show you where I grew up.”   
“We can host evening parties… but how do we tell our guests, politely, that it’s nearing our bedtime?”
“When I get my license, we can go for night drives… do you have a favorite car?”
It’s so hard to imagine some of these scenarios now because I know it’s never going to happen in this lifetime.

A whole lifetime where we will not see each other again.
A whole lifetime where I can’t just turn and ask you a silly question like what color would our car seats be?
A whole lifetime I have to struggle through without my partner and best friend.
How can that be?

I just have to remind myself that this is only a temporary goodbye. It is not at all a proper goodbye, definitely not. It’s more of a “see you really, really soon”.

And we all know (readers can say it with me at this point): I can’t wait to see you again. I love you more, always, and forever.

Love always,
Sha

*I found some images of us in our other lives!