Permanence

I’ve spent my whole life saying goodbye.

Learning how to let go of things I wasn’t allowed to keep.

What does it feel like when someone stays?

When something gains permanence?

When you become someone’s first choice?

My mother was yanked from my life when I was only twelve.

Abruptly.

There was no preamble, no omen, no foreshadowing. Just finality.

There was no negotiating period, no bargaining, no counter offers. No choice.

My dad went next. Not physically, at first. He was taken away by grief he couldn’t process.

It seems we buried key parts of him along with his wife.

He remained my father, but I lost the part of him that remembered how to be a daddy.

That summed up my life for a lot of years.

After a while, I stopped asking people to stay.
I became highly skilled at anticipating exits.

I kept one hand on the doorknob of every relationship, every city, every dream.
Calling it resilience.
Sometimes it was. Mostly it was fear dressed up as survival.

I am still learning that not everything I love is destined to disappear.
It’s still true that some things leave.
Some things die.
Some things are taken.

But perhaps a few things are meant to remain.
Maybe that’s what I’ve been walking toward all along.

These days, I find myself drawn to places that feel steady.
Sunlight that arrives on schedule.
Familiar streets.
Coffee shops where no one asks me to be anyone other than myself.

I think I am still searching for proof that permanence exists.
Or maybe I’m finally building it.