For The First Time Since You Left, I Feel Free

I woke up one day and realized that you weren’t the first thing on my mind. I didn’t see your face when I glared over at myself in the mirror. You didn’t pop into my head 15 times while in the shower. I didn’t turn on the news and realize how much I missed our morning ritual of coffee and political insight. I just sort of went on.

I went on with my day like any other that came before you. There was no worrying whether you’d call or a sadness that you didn’t. I didn’t even notice my phone wasn’t by my side for many hours. I didn’t obsess over my every thought about us or about how you chose to leave. You were no longer a character in the mental movie that my ego designed to keep me in pain. I just sort of continued on.

The day continued into the afternoon, and when I came home and took my aching feet to the ottoman to rest, I didn’t cry. I didn’t even feel somewhat somber or inconsolably alone like the other days. There was no emptiness in my house from your lack of presence or my own dark thoughts. I just sort of lived in the moment.

I laid on my living room sofa that evening, laughing at my phone as if the hundreds of hysterical memes all of a sudden entertained me more than your old photos that I’d masochistically scroll through. There was no more analytical remorse. No purposeful aching in my heart just so I could feel alive instead of half dead. I was just sort of happy.

And the next day, I once again awoke happily without haze or restraint, and didn’t need to realize that you were no longer energetically there with me. Because even if I tried to, there was no recollection of how your voice sounded or a single memory of the ways in which you made me feel. The parts of you I once craved didn’t exist anymore. And though I consciously and confidently knew that you left for freedom long ago, for some damn reason and almost as if out of the blue, I was the one who was finally set free.