When it Finally Dies

…a one shot.

I guess I should start at the beginning.

I graduated from elementary school in sixth grade. I had the whole graduation ceremony thing, which I suppose was supposed to make us feel mature or older or whatever. The school succeeded. Looking back on it, I firmly believe my graduation was a completely crack-pot idea, but at the time, it was awesome. Everyone felt so cool. What was even cooler was that were going to be going to middle school. Amazing!

My elementary school was joined by four other schools when we entered middle school. The school that we were going to served three sending districts (one school per district), plus the base elementary school from the local air force base. In any case, we were all timid and no one really knew each other. For the first few weeks, we all sort of stuck to our school. Eventually, however, we mingled, and we made friends from other schools.

I met him in seventh grade. I developed a crush on him. That’s really as far as it goes, or as far as it ever really will go. I could go into how someone who I thought was my friend betrayed me. I could go into how she told everyone that I liked him. But I won’t. Because that truly is all there is to it, and it’s not like it hurts me anymore. I’ve been over that for a very long time. Discussing it doesn’t bother me anymore. Discussing it is pivotal to my story with him.

I got over my crush on him, and he got over the whole me-liking-him thing. We became friends. He was one of my best guy friends from seventh grade on, right up until ninth grade. Ninth grade was when things got complicated again.

Against all common sense, all reason, all better judgment… I developed a crush on him. Again. It was pathetic, and I cringe thinking about it. But, I guess that’s just the way it is. In any case, I was over the moon. I got butterflies every time I thought about it. There was also a point where I entertained the idea that maybe he liked me back. This was proven false a short time later.

There’s no moral to my story. It was never resolved, and it never will be. He will be the one that got away, the one that I lost, the one that I probably should have been with but never was with. He’ll be the one that was perfect for me, but he was too dumb or blind or scared or whatever to see it.

To be quite frank, I’m okay with that. I mean, I’ll always wonder. There’s no way that I can’t, especially since I still harbor more-than-friendly feelings for him on some deep level. Some people will want to get technical and say that he was my first love, but I know that he wasn’t. I was never in love with him. He never gave me the chance to love him. He was my friend, sure, but the love I felt for him in that way was strictly platonic.

I barely speak to him anymore. I hardly see him, except early in the morning. Then I don’t see him all day. And in a way, it’s okay. I think it’d be harder for me to come to terms with our “relationship” if I saw him all the time. I think I’d fall for him all over again, much to my dismay. Then I would really have to examine the situation and rethink the theory that I wasn’t in love with him. There would have to be something he’s doing to make me like him.

Was he screwing around with me? Toying with my emotions? Feeding me tidbits to keep me hopeful, then just taking them away? Giving me an inch then taking a mile? Yeah, probably… He’s a jerk that way. His attitude was one of the reasons I liked him, since it was so compatible to mine. The idea that he was just playing around doesn’t shock me. If it did, then most people would question my friendship with him. His mean spirit isn’t exactly unknown to people.

If you ask my best friend, she’ll say that we were perfect for each other. We probably were. Like I said before, I probably should have been with him. The thing is, though… I’m not sure anymore that I should have been with him. Would we work? Yeah, most likely… But… I don’t know… Looking back on the situation, it just seems to me that it’s for the best that we didn’t get together.

I might be wrong about that, but it makes me feel better about the situation. I still have bitter feelings about him, mostly due to the fact that he was one of my best friends and he hurt me, whether it was intentional or not.

The point of this is to be able to, for the final time, just send out one message to the universe about him. After this, I’m done with him. This is my own personal ending for this chapter, even if it never reaches him (which it almost certainly will not). This is for me, and for no one else. I can’t get a resolution, so this is the next best thing… So this goes out to him:

I think I’m the one that got away from you. I also think that you’re the one that got away from me. You were just so oblivious. I would have done basically anything for you, because I thought that the world revolved around you. I was hopelessly naive. I now realize that NOTHING revolves around you. You are in your own, stuck up world where you are the center of attention and no one else matters. Well, guess what, darling… I mattered. I mattered to you. I don’t know for how long, but I definitely mattered. And you mattered to me so much, and it kills me to think about what happened between us. Our whole relationship has just been screwed up from the very beginning, and that’s probably why we never got together. You will have a series of more girlfriends or whatever, and that’s fine. I don’t care anymore. No, that’s a lie. I’ll always care, because I’m always going to have a soft spot for you. I’ll be forty years old and I’ll still have a soft spot for you. I cared about you that much. I still care about you. I’ve just realized that you are not for me. I’m not for you either. We hardly talk anymore, and that’s okay, because it hurts less when I don’t see you. Seeing you is a constant reminder of how you are a selfish bastard. I hope you have a nice life. I hope you grow up and mature and become a better person. Good luck in all your future endeavors. I won’t be there to see it, so I’m just saying it to you now so you’ll always know that I care about you and hope that you make it.

..And this is it.

I guess my concluding statements will be that… Sometimes, getting over someone is the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do. But once you do, it’s such a feeling of liberation. And then you move on, and there are no strings attached. When whatever it is that was holding you back finally dies, there’s no going back. And you’re better. Sure, it hurts like hell, but when it finally dies, you realize that you’re okay.

I am.