A Lovely Shade Of Blue

My phone buzzes, and I eagerly reach for it, hopeful that this time the buzz is coming from a message authored by you. It’s not. It’s a message letting me know that my flight has been canceled. My face contorts a bit, and I can feel the damp reaching my eyes, but I’ve been sad for so long that the tears don’t have the energy to spill out. Nothing that has happened recently has been able to shake me from this fatigued sad state.

I fell in like with you the moment we met. I introduced myself as your new colleague, and you responded in introduction. I remember the intense way you shook my hand, the overwhelming sensation that overtook me. Your touch was a wave of blue. The color is a perfect encapsulation of you. Blue is bright and warm, like a summer sky, or waves lapping on a shore. Blue is also dark, it’s the color of sadness, an emotion I feel in you, I can feel how deep you pack it down. You are ocean blue, light and happy on the surface, but dark and almost black the deeper into your depths I went. Your blue matched my blue in a way that made me finally feel seen. Your lovely shade of blue is complex, and through time and conversation I was introduced to many of your shades. I went from like to love.

I fell in love with you because of who you are. I fell in love with your laugh, and your smile, and the little constellation pigmentation in your left eye. A light hazel speckling in the depths of your chocolate brown eyes. I fell in love with your humor, and your undeniable kindness. You are so soft, so gentle and understanding. You made me feel safe for the first time in my life. You made me feel special, holding space for me, joking with me, confiding in me as I confided in you. You made me feel special because you are so reserved, so closed-off that I found our relationship an anomaly in each other's lives. An anomaly for me because I don’t get emotionally attached to people, and an anomaly for you because you don’t share or let people in.

We talked about work, but we also talked about our lives, our feelings, our pasts. We built a friendship, and you became my favorite person in the world.

As I hold my phone now, and I stare at the world canceled I think about why I was taking this trip. I left the company we both worked at. I left less than two weeks before my birthday, and Christmas, and on my last day, as I said goodbye you told me I would see you later. You said this was not goodbye, and asked how we should keep in touch, now that we couldn’t message each other through work means. You say you don’t do social media, leaving the only option to be exchanging phone numbers.

“I’ll allow you to give me your number.” You say glibly, I roll my eyes at you and retort,

“Uh, no, you are thankful that I would give you my number.” You let out a small laugh, and I smirk at you, my eyes glossy and sparkling with the ever-present tears welling in my eyes.

“Yes, please, thank you for giving me your number.” You smirk back and you hold your phone out to me as I type in my number and recite it to ensure I gave it correctly. Then my tears begin to overwhelm my eyes and I hug you tight and I say, “You may not need me, but I need you.” I try to hold in my tears, and you remind me that this is not goodbye. I wipe my face with the palm of my hands, and nod a few times, urging the tears to stop. They do. I walk out of my office and into the night, and I sit and wonder when I’ll hear from you. I wonder if me leaving was the catalyst you needed to be comfortable with our relationship progressing, something that seemed clear we both wanted. It seemed clear every time you told me I was pretty, or amazing, or smart, or funny, or fun… It seemed clear.

A few days pass, and I don’t worry. You know how much my birthday means to me, and I hope we can spend it together. When it’s the day of my birthday I wait for you to text me and wish me a happy birthday. You don’t. The next day I drop your Christmas gift off in the office and leave before I see anyone. I don’t hear from you that you got it. You don’t wish me a Merry Christmas a few days later either, and I can’t wish you one because I gave you my number but you didn’t give me yours.

At this point the pain from losing you has overwhelmed me. I’m so sad that I don’t cry. I can’t feel anything. I decide to plan a trip to inject some adventure into my life, and to have something to look forward to since it’s clear I can’t look forward to you.

The dam to my sadness doesn’t break on Christmas evening, when my car dies on the highway on the way home from my friends. It doesn’t break the next day when my best friends from high school both decide to tell me I no longer fit in their life. It doesn’t break when I get rejected for a very cool job I was in the running for. It doesn’t break when my pet frog dies early on New Year’s Eve. It doesn’t break when I don’t hear from you on New Year’s. With each hurdle I feel more and more numb, my heart so strung out in grief that it can’t comprehend anything happening around me. I miss you, and I am angry that I miss you. I am angry that I miss someone who doesn’t seem to miss me, who is choosing to miss me. I am angry at myself for thinking that I could matter to someone as much as they mattered to me.

I stay numb when my roof starts leaking, and every single day that passes that I don’t hear from you. I’m even numb now, when the trip I had planned to escape this feeling is canceled.

You promised it wasn’t goodbye. You promised you cared for me as much as I do you. You told me you were always on my side. You made me feel loved, really truly loved, and in the absence of you all I can feel is blue. I feel the very depth of blue, and because blue reminds me of you I can only think of it as a lovely shade. I grieve for you, and then I laugh because I know that grief is the love leftover when you lose someone. I want to be mad at myself for opening up and trusting and loving so carelessly, but love is never a waste. I miss you, I yearn for your voice and touch. I ache for your laugh and smell. I crave your specific shade of blue. I love you, but I must let you go.

I blink a few times, and nod at the message stating my flight is canceled. I can’t run away from this feeling of loss anymore. I put my phone down, and I decide to let you go, and to move on. I cry. I cry so hard that I feel light-headed. I make myself a cup of tea. I let you go. Then, my phone buzzes.