I almost texted him on Thursday. From the middle of the Manhattan Bridge walkway, of all the dramatic places.
I'd walked over from DUMBO after work, the way I sometimes do when my head is too loud. The light was doing that golden thing it does in October, hitting the water and the skyline and making the whole city look like the end of a movie.
And there it was. His name, sitting in my phone. The thumb hovering.
Letting go is not one clean decision. Nobody tells you that. It's a thousand tiny ones, over and over, usually in inconvenient places like the Manhattan Bridge with a train rattling past loud enough to shake your bones.
We weren't even together that long. But he was the first person who made New York feel less enormous, and when that ended, the city got big and cold again for a while.
I typed something. Deleted it. Typed something softer. Deleted that too.
In the movies I grew up on, there's always a running-through-the-airport moment. The grand gesture. SRK with his arms wide open. I love those films with my whole heart. But real letting go looks nothing like that.
Real letting go looks like standing on a bridge, choosing not to send the text, and walking the rest of the way home anyway.
So that's what I did. I put my phone in my pocket. I watched a tugboat push through the water below. I let the wind mess up my hair and I didn't fix it.
Letting go, I'm learning, isn't about not caring anymore. I still care. It's about caring and staying quiet. Loving someone enough to leave the past where you left it.
I walked off the bridge into the Lower East Side, found a dumpling spot, and ate alone without feeling lonely. Progress, maybe.
Some texts are better written and never sent.
The bridge kept my secret. So will I.
Love,