One night lying in bed, I stretched out my hand and felt something soft under it.
Not long until I realized that it was my sister's teddy bear, small and white, soft and lovely, then I remembered she once said to me she couldn't sleep without it, then I remembered I used to say that same sentence to someone else about a teddy bear or two I used to own, which haven't crossed my mind for a very long time. Yes, things changed and I now share a bed with my sister. Things changed and my childhood house was sold to a stranger, someone now owns my old room, now sleeps in my old bed. Things changed and I'll be surprised every time a memory resurfaces, realizing there was that thing I used to own and there was that person I used to be. I know we're supposed to make up memories as we go and that just how things work but goodbyes are always hard. It's clearly that I didn't even get to say them properly sometimes. Sometimes I know when we part ways and just can't seem to say goodbye; yet at least then I can give myself time to grieve. But sometimes I don't even know we have long parted until that one moment of realization, and only then, the grief is unbearable. Where did I eventually put that worn out teddy bear I once claimed I couldn't sleep without? And how can I grieve the thing that I didn't have the chance to grieve after all this time. I've lost things and I've lost people and soon I realized that loss is not emptiness that you can fill up again one day. Loss takes up its own space like an infinitely inflatable balloon that never bursts. Sometimes it's small, but sometimes with enough force, it takes up everything in your head reminding you that you didn't say goodbye, that you forgot, that you've been lying to yourself. Then the morning came, before I left for school, I didn't know what to do but looked at everything and tried to say goodbye like I would never see them again; just to realize that there are never enough goodbyes in this world.
