The Little Sadnesses that Come with Things Getting Better

I dreamed about you last night.

It had been a while. When you first took off, it seemed that any morning I woke up remembering my dreams from the previous night, I was remembering you and me on some sort of adventure. In space. In Japan. In some alternate reality. Rarely sexual, but always together. As if reality itself couldn't stop us if we'd just combine our powers.

Those were lovely dreams. I'd wake from them happy. I don't wake up happy anymore.

That's just one of the little sadnesses I deal with now that you're gone. Don't get me wrong. Ending whatever we had was the right decision. Once I finally woke up and realized how much damage I'd caused myself by battling to keep you in my life, I knew that walking away was the only right answer. That doesn't mean it's been easy. Or painless. 

Oddly, the further you get from my mind, the more details of your face I forget, the sadder I get. It's no longer a massive, immovable wall of sadness. But it's many little sadnesses teaming up in me, the way all those little mini-Ash guys ganged up on Ash in that windmill in Army of Darkness. Little things like realizing I'm forgetting what you look like. Or realizing all the affection and care I had (and still have) for you lying around unused and rotting away.

Or how about this one: It's hit home recently that you were far from the person I fell in love with by the time we parted ways. The woman I fell for was funny, intelligent, and extremely creative. You were down to go out and do things. You were fascinating to me. Beautiful. The woman I never knew I'd always wanted.

By the time you took off, the woman I was so drawn to was gone. In her place was someone who looked just like her and sounded like her, but "you" no longer acted like her. Instead, "you" were neurotic, depressed, and terrified of your own shadow. We never went anywhere where there might be other people. It was a major victory if I could get you to go any further away than a couple blocks from your house. When I first loved you, you were fun. By the time you left, you were like a pod person version of yourself.

That little sadness has been compounded by the idea that maybe the pod person version of you was the real you. Maybe all the things I loved about you were affectations you put on so I'd like you. Maybe the pod person was just beneath the surface the whole time. 

Or maybe things were the way I perceived them to be. maybe the person I loved so much was taken over and disposed of by You, the pod person. Maybe the pod person betrayed and murdered the person I loved so much. I'm reminded of what Obi-Wan told Luke Skywalker when confronted about what the old Jedi told him about his father's death. "What I told you was true... from a certain point of view."

Maybe you were never real. That seems logical from a certain point of view. Maybe your emotional and psychological issues turned you into a pod person, unwilling to take even the slightest of risks. That also could be true from a certain point of view. And maybe an angry, terrified side of you murdered the amazing, fascinating side of you that I was so crazy about. Again, from the right point of view, that could be true. 

All I know for sure is that while being away from you is getting easier every day and I'm getting closer to getting back to being my true self, all these thoughts make me sad. And the idea that someday I'll forget you completely and these little sadnesses will be gone... That is a little sadness in and of itself.