There are some things you have to let go.

I let go of wondering why. Of wondering where the photos of us went and what it meant when we said best friends. I let go of texting you little silly thoughts I had because I don’t think you care anymore.

I let go of the ex-boyfriends and the cherished treasures and the well-worn t-shirts I used to love to sleep in. I let go of the journal entries that imagined lives together and said that nothing could be better. I let go of the way we held hands the first time we sat beside one another in a hushed theater and the time we snuck into a second movie and the way you chided me when my pants rode too low. (I let go of wearing pants, too.) I let go of taking walks with him when I was sad and sleeping on the floor so we could see the moon through the blinds. I hardly remember it, truly.

I let go of the faded memories, the thrift store skirts, the ticket stubs and the lists I kept of shows I’d seen. I let go of arriving too early or getting there late, and I let go of worrying about it. I let go of bare feet and festivals and spinning strangely as the music played. I let go of worrying if I fit in, because I don’t want to anymore. I let go of the way the sun goes down to the west as the band comes up on stage and feeling like that was the moment.

I let go of the philosophy books I’ll never understand. I let go of cosmology, because I’m just not cut out for it. (I won’t, however, let go of Stephen Hawking or Carl Sagan, because.) I let go of wanting to read every history book ever written for the sole purpose of feeling that perhaps I could know everything about something. I let go of yearly updates to the professor who made me feel smart and a little stupid, too. I let go of feeling like I’m still twenty years old and in college and terrified of it all. I let go.

I let go of the way you turned it around on me. I let go of the friends I’ll never have again because of it. I let go of wondering what it’s like where you are now, because to me, it doesn’t matter. Not in a cruel way; it’s just something I needed to get rid of.

I let go of worrying about the bad decisions I’ve made and the consequences they bore and the crying about it. I let go of what you would think if you knew, because you don’t. I let go of letting it define me. I don’t know that it ever did.

I’ve let go of so much, sloughed off what didn’t matter, to become who I truly am.

photo by payton guerra