on letting go
i got a co-star notification that said, "destroy with purpose." the app is a novelty at best. the notifications come to me like a sims 1 prank call. the "message from the universe" timing can be silly or ominous.
this "message" arrived on or around d-day, can't say i recall the exact date. time blurs when you feel that certain chill, the one that feels like stepping out from your warm abode in the height of the first snow of the year. but you've seen snow before, many winters under your belt. somehow everything feels brand new, and you've been here before. it's the antithesis of the chill of a new crush.
up until this point, you've been clenching what once was like it's your job. your friends know things are still tender. they see your makeshift pietà in the way you hold your hands out towards something that isn't there. they don't see the spectre of hope you caress in your stupor. when you come to accept that what you thought you have is actually what you had, you catch yourself from tripping down a staircase. the icy rail in your grip echoes your revelation in your blood's path to homeostasis; in morse code, your pulse spells out, "i have to let go."
i think of slash-and-burn agriculture. burn the land to start anew. surely, i can do that here? i can destroy what was destroyed with purpose. it'll repurpose the damage. used sparingly, this is a fruitful way to think, but now i'm just grasping at straws. this isn't sustainable. i spend a fortnight simulating any possible probabilities of everything working out. i'm elated and creative in this time, but my imaginative streak is cut short when there's a new moon.
if there's anything that gives me a sense of time, it's the phases of the moon. d-day was around a full moon, and i felt a vitality spring up when i heard the glass break. i can fix this. this can be fixed. this can be fixed. i can fix this. the new moon's impending shadow reads like an hourglass running out. i have one last chance. i pull this chance out in repetitive prayers, but i've smelted everything already.
today, i got a notification that said, "there's nothing you can do to force someone else to change." i tapped to get a more in-depth look. the co-star app opens and my screen reads:
"your grip has tightened so much that you can't feel what you're holding anymore. they won't transform under pressure--only pull away. let go. not forever, just enough for them to breathe. and for you to see clearly."
mass surveillance has gotten out of hand at this point, but i can't take this with a grain of salt. it's what i've been afraid to admit to myself until the chill. co-star's algorithm can be right twice a day if you want it to be. that isn't to say i wouldn't have come to this conclusion without it. the answer was inside me the entire time. the sobering chill happens when it's meant to.
it's betraying, really. love is supposed to persevere. it's supposed to bud into 1 corinthians 13:13. i haven't gone to church since i was confirmation-age, but i'd be a fool to say mass did not shape my notions of love. i hold on to the trinity of faith, hope, and love with determined fervor and then feel their weights grow light, slipping through my fists. i can't stop loving because it's breaking a promise. i was devoted, and i feel slimy at the thought of stopping.
it doesn't have to be that way, though. letting go isn't discarding what was as common litter, even if the premise of doing so out of spite is enticing. after the storm lulls, in humid repose, there comes relief. i feel guilty for naming it as relief--tastes chalky--but soon enough, it feels like the first deep breath after a cold. i recall the timeline of events out loud to see if i missed anything and say, "but still, how did we get here?" i'm not perfect, and i'm not trying to paint anyone as my enemy here. i had my time to be contemptuous and hurt. i tried. i did my best. i can walk away knowing that.
perhaps letting go is a great act of love after all. the mere thought doesn't ring hollow anymore. it's not just an act of love towards the other person, but towards us, and myself. especially myself.