Dear U;

Promises are kind of a weird thing. You can promise to see someone the next day and then blow them off. You could promise to do better in school and then fail a class. You can promise to do just about anything and get away with it. After a while, however, if you break too many of your promises people are not going to believe that you are trying at all anymore. After all, this is simply how things are. People break promises and their word suddenly means nothing. I try not to be that kind of person, but sometimes it’s just the way things turn out.

We, however, were different. We promised each other forever, something that neither of us should have done. We were young, however, and didn’t know any better. We were stupid and we should have known that forever is such a long time and promise yourself to someone for that long is making a commitment that you just cannot hold yourself to. It’s hard to promise forever at a young age, it’s hard to promise forever when your moments on Earth are almost over, it’s hard to promise forever because we, as mortals, are only here for such a small amount of time.

It makes you wonder if a promise like forever is void when the two people die. They are no longer on this Earth, so can they hold their promise anymore? Maybe in the after life, but with no proof that there is even an after life we cannot say that “forever” is something that continues on throughout the ages, a promised whispered in the breeze after bones call to dust. Is that what a true promise of forever is? A promise that, even when the material body vanishes, still remains in spirit?

I suppose in the end it doesn’t matter because our forever did not last. We were young and threw around the words “love” and “forever” like they were common, like they were something that everyone should understand when it reality they aren’t. Maybe we were in love, maybe we weren’t, I can’t say for sure anymore because my mind keeps falling back on that word, on the forever that you promised me. I can’t even say for sure that I would have kept up my end of the deal, but you were the one who faltered first, you were the one that fell to the side and let things end up the way they did, you were the one who shattered my forever.

I can’t say I entirely blame you. People move on, we were young, I just wish I hadn’t taken the word forever as seriously as I did. You told me “I can’t wait because now I have forever with you” like you meant it and maybe you did, at the time, but time makes fools of us all I suppose. It was such a silly thing of me to take to heart, but when you told me that I thought I could take on the entire world, I thought I could fight any foe, defeat any enemy, fly from rooftop to rooftop like a bird. Why? Because I had forever with you, just like you promised that day under the stars.

I hate the word “forever” now because whenever I hear it I think of you, of how you broke your promise to me, of how our “forever” faltered and failed. Was it ever strong to begin with? I don’t know, I thought it was, but what do I know. All I know now is that our forever died along with a small part of me. Now I can’t find myself thinking that anyone else will be the who carries on a promise to the ages that will live on through time. I’m afraid of someone telling me that again because I think they will do the exact same thing to me. After all, what proof do I have that the next person won’t? I guess it all comes down to faith and trust in the next person that comes along.

I guess I wish I had placed a finger over your lips when you said those words, told you to take back the “forever” and change it to “here and now.” I wish I had lived more in the moment and realized what I was promising to. Our forever didn’t last until the ages, our forever died, and there is nothing I can do about that. I accept that, I’m trying not to regret it, but I wish it was “here and now,” I wish I had lived more in the moment instead of worrying about a promise that would transcend time itself.