《Ｌｏｖｅ Ｔｈｅｓｅ Ｄａｙｓ》

5. Salt in the wound.

When we make friends, we always think they're forever. We picture ourselves at their wedding, holding their children, sharing a glass of wine as old people to reminisce about the good times. We even think of living together, travelling, sharing our lives, but we never consider the possibility of saying goodbye to them.

You could be rocked by a huge fight that puts you and them in a battlefield against each other; maybe one of you causes an irremediable damage to the other. Or maybe you just wake up one day and realize you're not talking as much as you used to, you don't feel the need to run to tell them about anything that happens to you, or they don't need your company at every moment like they once had. Maybe you followed different paths, you don't have much in common anymore, and you don't have the same lives. Simply, you change. You meet them again after some time to try to catch up and realize you have nothing to say; you don't laugh at the same old jokes anymore, and you see how different you both have become. It's such a nostalgic feeling, sad even. Because you realize all those plans you had with them won't happen. The scenarios in your head of your future together will be no more.

I honestly don't know what is worse: blowing up in the most dramatic, ravaging way possible and leaving a love in shambles, or simply standing there, witnessing as it slowly dies without being able to save it.

I've had both. I loved so much, and I lost even more. My friends, whom brothers and sisters I considered, they blasted away or vanished, both just as painful. We won't be college roommates no more; they won't be my bridesmaids no more; I won't be their child's godmother no more. The love that felt so eternal, undying and true, will only be a memory stored in the back of the head of a person who is loving again, only someone else.

But people like me don't forget. The love doesn't vanish, only the faces. The memory of every person I've loved is still attached to my soul. And that is because I love so much, I give everything I have and even more. I tie myself to those I care for. I belong.

Belonging.

That feeling is dearly treasured by any being capable of love. I've always longed for belonging; to a place, to a person, to a dream. Who am I if not the person who loves the person I belong to? Who am I if not someone who chases a dream or goal devotedly? Or the place that shelters me blissfully as a home that I'm meant to be in?

Who am I if I don't belong?

When I was thirteen I met Mikey. He was a feminine boy who was cast away by our classmates because he wasn't one to play football and talk about women, he actually felt more comfortable hanging out with the girls and he wanted to be a hairdresser.

We became friends and I instantly saw him as a little brother that I had to protect. He came from a problematic family with an abuser father and a mother who was trying her best with her seven children. As if that wasn't enough to deal with, he had to deal with the fact that he liked boys. He was insulted and hit equally by strangers and people he knew well. I turned myself into a human shield to cover him from any threat that could come his way; I made my home his home. But we grew up and we changed.

We both wanted the same, we loved intensely and wanted that love to be reciprocated by those we belonged to, and I belonged to him as I belonged to everyone I loved. Until, at some point, he stopped belonging to me and I became a burden. But my door was always open for him still.

I spent days and nights alone, feeling torn apart, choking on feelings and not having a single soul to hold on to as I was drowning, because he wasn't there. No one's home was my home, no door was open for me. But yet, every time his heart was shattered on the floor by those he devoted himself to, he returned to me. And I always opened the door.