Stillness! How do I love and let go without losing him entirely?

By Linda Apollo

Stillness. Stillness is under-rated. Stillness is golden though not so golden. I know stillness, I have mastered it. I have heard God talk to me in stillness. He says, “Be still and know that I am God.”

I hit rock bottom and stillness is the only way to speak. Stillness until your own heartbeat. Stillness until you feel life leaving your body as you suffocate. Stillness until you feel the darkness crippling in. That’s the much stillness and I relate.

I lie down on my bed, hands on my face. He is the only one I have left and now I am losing him too.

I don’t want to be a selfish friend. That’s not who I am. I don’t want to imprison him. I do not want to tighten my grip until he slips away in between my fingers. How do I let go without losing him entirely? Is that even possible. Am I wishing for too much?

I am just 24 years old but how do I start self-discovery at this time and age? How do I identify what I love about life when I see bananas at the store and I smile because I know it is his favourite fruit? I love what he loves. Does that even make sense? How do I break from worrying about his health whenever the weather gets too dusty or too cold? Is he having his meals as required? Is he having enough rest?

I don’t have friends. Okay, I have two friends who have other friends. Wait, I have three friends, I reconciled with my best friend not so long ago. That makes me expandable. Very much dismissible. I don’t have friends because I find human interaction so draining and I go for quality over quantity.

Listen to the stillness in my bedroom. In my house. My big empty apartment. It reminds me of my own soul. Lost within all the familiarity. No one prepared me that one day I will have to let go of him. Was he even mine or it was all in my head?

How do I love without being the enemy? How do I respect his decision of moving in without crying myself to sleep? Without going for days without eating? How do I deal with the nostalgia? The nerve wrecking pangs of missing him?  Of loving him without being too much?

Apparently this is how life works. Everyone eventually leaves. Whether it is by going after their dreams, unresolved issues, traveling, changed priorities, death or masks finally falling off. Whatever the case, they eventually leave. How can I hope for a love as deep as my own from anyone? At this time and age? How do I expect to ever get in return what I give without holding anything back?

If I went missing or worse, died, would anyone notice? I am losing one of the beautiful things in my life. Tell me, how do I love and let go without losing him entirely?

STILLNESS.