There have been a lot of thoughts that have cycled through my consciousness this past month. Most of these thoughts revolve around him since I see him in the smallest details of my life. At the Los Angeles airport, I saw the bakery that my older sister had catered her wedding cake from, which took me back to the actual night of her wedding. My younger sister and I had sat down with him in our hotel room and happily ate the leftover tier. No forks, just spoons in our hands, eating scoop after scoop of vanilla-strawberry goodness. Only later did we realize that we had completely forgotten the tradition that newlyweds are supposed to freeze their wedding cake and eat it a year later. These sorts of recollections are tinged with a sadness but also a nervousness--that all I'll have are these sad things to remember but he will still be absent.

I think about him at the most arbitrary moments triggered by random images and sounds. A funny sound made by a tail-less cat, a sweet moment shared between my feisty grandparents, an awkward encounter with twice, thrice-removed members of the family. It is in these moments that the dark corners of my mind that used to be dim with contentment are now lightly soaked with subtle sorrow. I see his silhouette, but it's simple a ghost of a thing that used to be real.

I'm able to better suppress the sadness now--the sadness of not speaking with him, the sadness of missing him, the sadness of having lost him. It's still there in my life, but softly, only a whisper right now. He's still there. Ironically and rather unfortunately, his absence is a reminder of his presence. It's unfair, this gloominess that stays with me, a constant presence that lurks around me. But I learn to cope as best as I can because I don't know what else to do to win him back.

I know that this is my life now. We are apart, and though I earnestly hope that our paths will cross again, some deep unspoken part of me knows that this is the end. He will go his way, I will go mine. This is why I cry, why I listen to break-up songs on repeat for days on end, why I desperately cling onto my phone and text or call anyone who's willing to deal with me that moment.

I've told myself that this is the last time I will openly speak of this breakup. It's been a month, and I'm sure people have read my posts, have rolled their eyes and thought, "She's still whining about it? Pathetic." So this is it because it's already over; no amount of tears or poetry will change that. This isn't the path I chose, but it is the way I will walk. This is how I say goodbye.