When Things Fall Apart

After the harsh words have been said, the bell's been rung and can't be undone, after the silence and the anger and the sliver of hope has died down, there is an emptiness that just remains.

Then you discover it.

His shirt.

His books.

These must be wrapped and sent back. No midnight trip to his front porch with a wistful glance at his window; no pitiful note enclosed inside. Just the books and the shirt. No return address, either.

Next, there is the little matter of the digital footprint to take care of, the last remnant of connection. 

The Facebook friend....
It gave me hope where none exists.
REMOVE FRIEND.
God that hurt. But it's done.

Yahoo Messenger, the Final Frontier....
I set myself to "permanently appear offline" to him. But I can still see him logging on and off, on and off, day after day. I can read his updates, including all the times he hits the personals pages and how much time he spends playing Mahjong. I can't take anymore, knowing he's sitting RIGHT THERE.....

DELETE

It doesn't have the instant liberation I'd anticipated. Instead, it reduces me to tears. Almost. I swear to god I am not going to shed anymore tears over this man. There is a reason this didn't work out, no matter how much we did care for each other or how much I wanted him....and apparently our history together didn't help hold this together, either. Nothing I did or said made any difference. He just didn't care about me the way I did about him. There. I said it, acknowledged it. Now it's time to let go of it.

Anymore, people can't just break up and be done with it. There is so much lingering crap, most of it online, that has to be dealt with. As we create these nests for ourselves, we create something akin to a trap as we try to later extract ourselves from what we've woven together, both offline and online. Sometimes, I feel like the online presence is even harder to delete than the human.

Tonight was the final step for me, deleting him from messenger. It hurts not to see him listed there anymore.

Just another change as time marches forward. I am marching forward. Sometimes sad. But moving just the same.