A new leaf

On the day I last met her, I realized that like me, she was still struggling to untangle imaginary imperatives we faced. Her initial resolute pronouncement I sensed was tempered now by both memory and guilt. She was unsure as to what to do or what could be done. I understood her vacillation. I, above all, felt it too.

I regretted all the heartbreak and trouble that I caused. I often wondered if she was sorry she had met me or what she thought now when she remembered our happy times together. But I didn’t ask her those questions.

Our first furtive meetings and our innocent conspiracy, the plans we had made and the loyalty we had shown each other seemed to me now like something that happened to other people in another world I would only imagined.

Had it ever really happened to me or was it simply a passage in a novel I’d read?

In leaving her, I felt I might repay her for the embarrassment and suffering I’d caused her. She could start a new life and in time fulfill most of her dreams. Letting go of what was surely already lost, I too might find in time, peace in my decision; and I will not be beyond redemption.

On my final note to her I wrote:

I am a burden to you. I will be a burden to you until I go away. The past and all that had happened to us would always be ours. Guess we have to settle for that alone now. Goodbye. Take care of yourself. Have a good life.

That was the last time I ever saw her again. As I write this, I realize that I am changing at this time. I am becoming increasingly optimistic about my future. I sense new possibilities in my life and felt old fears simply evaporating. I behave like a child whose eyes had just opened and who was seeing the world for the first time. I experience a sense of wonder at new possibilities. It feels good to be living again.

And so my old life ended. And my new life begins.