Getting over her was like rush hour. Everything moved so slow and all I could think about was coming home. I waited for her, you know? It was humiliating. For months I felt like I sitting at a booth - being stood up over and over again; until an apologetic face told me that they needed this table and I had to go.
I missed her so bad.
I would pour two drinks instead of one and I’d watch intently until the last drop of condensation slid down the glass onto the coaster. My friends told me it’d be okay but how could what I feel, eventually measure up to a four letter word that meant nothing? “Okay.” What does that even mean?
I wished. Every time I saw the number one appear four times on the clock, I wished. I wished so hard. Birthday candles only come around once a year and for the last two years I wasted them on the same person. I thought that saying the wishes out loud weren’t enough so I started writing them down. Every time I’d catch the clock and I’d write it down. I don’t think you realize how much love consumes you until you call shotgun and go along for the ride.
My sorrow became my badge of honor, my drug of choice and on the days I felt weak I knew wasn’t myself. I didn’t want to be this person. I don’t suggest it, either. And truth be told, I wouldn’t wish this kind of aching on anybody. But it happens. It happens so fast. One day you’re perfectly in love and nothing can touch you, the next you’re empty and you haven’t even had time to let it hit you. Everything keeps moving.
And while you’re pouring drinks for someone who isn’t coming, while you’re stuck in traffic waiting to get home safely, while you’re walking out of the restaurant waiting for valet..
There’s someone else pouring her drinks now, there’s someone else waiting for her at home and you know that the booth you had reserved 5 months earlier now houses their first date. It’s hard, you know?
Everything was so difficult. You never know how to say how you feel. You end up saying too much or not enough. You learn to turn it off. You’re just friends now. Friends? Yeah right. But you’re trying. I’m trying.
I hear her voice and my heart fills to the brim, I am home again. But reality strikes. It gets away from me for a minute. You feel everything you felt but the scenery has changed. Nothing is the same and it probably never will be and you soak it up, you drink it in. This is what has come of this. You put on your best dress, you cut your hair off, you change the color, you change everything they loved because you don’t want to be that person anymore. Being yourself reminds you of them. Being different reminds you of them. Feelings change. They change fast and the best thing that you can do is **** it up. Swallow it like that bitter pill and rinse that bad taste out of your mouth. You were in love, it consumed you and it made you whole but now it’s gone and you need to stop whining about what you’ve lost. Because you aren’t over it, you’re not even close but you’re telling yourself that. And when you tell yourself something enough it becomes true. So I wait in rush hour but I don’t go home. I go to restaurants but I don’t go alone and I pour two drinks and I give someone else one. I am okay, whatever that means.