Note: I wrote this blog on 09/11/2024 after pacing down a hallway after a LONG day of yearning.

Love on the Cusp of Goodbyes

There’s something about goodbyes that just makes me feel hollow. Growing up, I never knew how to express (or receive) love, so I always had a bitter sweet relationship with it. Love is a little more complicated than that in the sense that you are always surrounded by it, more so when you think you don’t deserve any of it.

Being the kind of person I am, it took me forever to realise just how much I was surrounded by love, I just never had the ability to see it. There’s a small catch to this - it all seems to go well till it’s time to say goodbye.

There’s something beautiful about unexpressed love that makes you overcompensate for love you didn’t act on before. There’s guilt, there’s closure and there’s hope that things are the same, even though you promise you’ll be better at expressing it moving forward. Each glance on your loved one invokes an emotion you never had before.

Unexpressed love comes in all shapes and sizes. You can see it in your parents when they’re packing more “food” just so you never feel homesick. It is in that extra “long” hug at airports and stations, and in that “one last walk” at farewell parties. Nothing can ever prepare you for this hollow feeling, and no amount of “last minute” love can make up for it.

That’s beautiful in its own way. The guilt, or the grief means that there’s always going to be a part of them in you. It’s just so beautiful how emotions work. The only way you make sure someone’s memory always stays with you is to have some pain attached to it.