to love fully, without regret

most of my adult life i’ve returned time and time again to memories of goodbyes. goodbyes to memories too. on christmas eve this past year, i wrote something for the billionth time. and a few days ago, cleaning out my purse post kolkata, i read it again–like childish scribbles on sand, we repeat words others have used over and over across time, washed away and forgotten, only to be written again by familiar hands. i know this all too well. yet the words read differently this time. i felt a close. they looped into a circle of sort; every other writing in the past about this goodbye finally ended. and by the last sentence it wasn’t about those people at all but one man. it’s always been about that man, the one i fell in love with ever since i laid my eyes on him, the one i saw again in india in a whole new light, this beautiful man.

[…] i’m having a moment with this rosencran guy and his wife’s story of moving away from paris.

maybe it’s because i haven’t had to say goodbye to anything or anyone in a while. and saying goodbye always sucks. always. right now i’m mourning every little and past goodbyes i ever had to do. and it’s not fair. i know it’s not fair. there’s no way that i’ll ever get over saying it. no matter how many times i say it, no matter how far the past has passed. it is absolutely the worst.

i can’t seem to get desensitized. every time i said goodbye to someone, even if nothing has changed for that person, i can’t help it. i mourn. my heart feels too frantic to stay put and i can’t stop those damn emotions running 500 mph.

when aaron took off to aussieland, when i left sam in hohenfels, when steve quit, when christina moved out, when hosea got married, when dumbledore died. every fcking single time. and now the baldwins clear out of their paris life without actually saying goodbye to anyone, not even to bruno!–because they simply can’t bear it.

but what i have come to believe and experience slowly is that when we say goodbye to the good, we get to see the better. it’s always been true.

i loved each and every person i mourned. i really did. and that love doesn’t go away. it doesn’t disappear. and those people don’t become any less important just because things change and life moves us in different directions. they don’t. my love for them makes me who i am now, able to love fiercely and without regret.

when push comes to shove and everything is said and done, if i had to do all this again. i would in a heartbeat. i would love all these people all over again. i would make those mistakes all over again (maybe not every single one…) if i were given a do-over, even if nothing were to change, if all still ended in heartbreaks. i would. again. knowing what i know now. i will love again. no regrets.

on the plane back to stateside, in a half dazed, half awake reflection, i knew i had done well the past three weeks of kolkata because i gave all my heart to each person i had met. Jesus told me clearly i would receive a new level of fearlessness when parting ways. i wouldn’t have to keep myself at 99% with some small and subtle dread of having to say goodbye at some point. so i took him at his words and recklessly poured out, nothing held back. the last day, up until the very last minute we got into the cab to head to the airport we blessed and prayed and spent ourselves for the people in india. i lost nothing, i mourned nothing, i regretted nothing. and in my heart i know i’ve conquered: i know how to love fully, without regret. there’s no fear in love. it’s not something new i’ve learned, i’m just made for it. everything about me has been fashioned for giving away 110%.

it’s the only way to live.