I said goodbye (again)

The last two years have been a rollercoaster for me. I’m pretty sure I am going through a mid-life crisis. For me, it doesn’t include buying a convertible and dating younger men (dating (.) would be nice) but instead it has submerged me into the depths of my soul, more than before.

I’m always thinking, proposing theories, connecting dots, looking for answers, wanting to heal my wounded child. I look for the possible reasons for XY&Z, find a plausible answer and start complete monologues in my head about it. I imagine myself with the person I suspect was the trigger for discomfort A and unload all of my brilliant theory. That was until recently, I don’t know what stage of grief this is but now I just don’t care. I see my parents are wounded children who tried to live a life, raise children and fulfill society’s expectations to the best of their abilities, I see my sisters in the same way, my uncles, my cousins, him, me… all of us, wounded children. The difference now is that I see it, I know that no one is out to hurt me, but I’m still hurt and I want to heal and at the same time, I just don’t care about anyone’s feelings, anymore.

This sounds terrible, maybe, but I am also in the quest of doing my best not to control anything or anyone. Like Sean Clayton on Instagram says “We can’t control anything, but we influence everything” and so I’m working on giving up the illusion of control.

Coming back to the title: I said goodbye—again—to someone I cared about deeply, and whom I had never fully released.

That night, sleep wouldn’t come. Not because of drama, but because I returned to an old habit many of us develop with age: searching for meaning. I revisited my past relationships, connected the dots, and looked honestly at my patterns. And then it became clear.

I realized something uncomfortable but necessary: I am not an attentive partner—yet I have spent years saying I wanted one.

That contradiction didn’t come from nowhere. It comes, quite plainly, from my first experience of love with a man: my father. Or rather, from his absence. I learned early that it was “normal” to have a man in my life who offered very little—sporadic presence, limited attention, moments of warmth followed by distance, an emotionally closed personality—and that my role was to be understanding, patient, and accommodating.

That realization brought me back to him—the man I just said goodbye to once more. A man I know is also carrying his own wounds. A man I likely frightened further when I left to pursue my master’s degree. A man to whom I once wrote from a place of hope, confusion, and longing.

At the time, my message sounded like this:

I understood his busyness.
I understood his walls.
I understood that he said he had been “clear” before I left.

But I also remembered promises that were never kept. A visit that never happened. Songs that were sent across distance—songs whose lyrics spoke of longing, of starting something real, of desire and tenderness. Maybe they meant nothing. Maybe they were just music he liked. But I interpreted them as possibility.

Then life intervened—as it often does. The pandemic. The delays. The endless reasons not to meet. And still, I hoped. I hoped that when we did see each other, the guard would come down. That we could begin again, differently.

Eventually, the truth was spoken plainly: he could offer distance, or something casual, or something without commitment. And finally, I listened.

I understood that I am no longer willing—or able—to participate in relationships without emotional presence. “No strings attached” is no longer freedom for me; it is abandonment wearing a softer name.

So I let go.

Not dramatically. Not angrily. But tired. Disenchanted. Finished. Five years of waiting is enough.

Yes, I’ve said goodbye before. With kinder tones. With blessings and good wishes. And those wishes remain sincere. I would not have held onto the idea of what we could have been if I hadn’t seen real potential in him.

But growth, at this stage of life, asks something else of us.

It asks us to stop offering more than we receive.
To stop calling inconsistency “complexity.”
To stop mistaking emotional distance for depth.

This time, the goodbye is also a commitment—to myself.

To give only what is given to me.
To match presence with presence.
To choose relationships that feel mutual, not familiar.

It may sound firm. It may even sound bitter.

But it isn’t.

It’s clarity.