The Finality of the Farewell: Drawing the Line in the Sand

The Finality of the Farewell: Drawing the Line in the Sand

The hardest part of leaving isn't the physical separation from Pocatello—it’s the final curtain call on any possibility of speaking to Jeffrey again.

When I leave this place, my promise must be firm, unyielding, and resolute: I will not look back. And that includes him.

This is, by far, the greatest obstacle to my departure. It is the raw, terrifying truth of my heart: I don't want that door to close—not truly. But it must.

The Melting Point and the Catastrophic Risk

The honesty of the situation is this: any movement from him towards me would rip open those doors. They would blow off the hinges. But that cannot be the case once I leave. I cannot start a new life only to be pulled away from it.

I cannot build something alone and then try to rework it to accommodate two. The path is now black and white:

Rebuild together with someone equally invested, fully, and absolutely committed to seeing it through.

Or stick to doing it alone so that I am the only one responsible, with no distractions outside of this one monumental task.

Anything else, once I start this, could potentially be the one right thing. But the gamble of the 50/50 chance is too high an odd to place a bet on this late in the game. I cannot risk losing at this point.

My security, financial well-being, and housing must now supersede love.

If I fall, it is just me. I will have no one to catch me, no one to help carry the burden of life and its obligations. I have no spouse, and I have no children. I will have no one to stand for me. If I take the gamble, I risk losing my independence and my right to live as I choose. I simply cannot afford the gamble of a 50/50.

The Truth of the Void: No Substitutes Allowed

What makes this choice all the more difficult is the absolute, immovable certainty in my heart: my love has not dimmed, and it will never belong to anybody else.

I honestly believe marriage is one and done. Only in the rarest of circumstances, based on my personal interpretation of divine law, could one justify remarriage. This has been my view forever, and nothing—not even my current circumstance—has changed it.

But this isn't just about divine law; it's about love itself. I cannot marry anyone else, or even hope to be in a relationship of real value, because I can't fake a connection. I cannot fool myself into believing it is love when truly it is just a distraction from the emptiness of him—the void of where he would be.

I would feel God-awful knowing that the person next to me, if not him, truly is nothing more than a feeling, a workable substitute. When I realized it wouldn't matter who the man was that occupied the space and spent time with me, I realized I would be turning them into a commodity of comfort—a living doll of distraction from the pain of not having the genuine thing. That in itself would destabilize me.

Until my love for him diminishes—which I now believe to be impossible, despite everything that has happened—I will not substitute who I truly love with someone who just occupies the space to distract me.

The Ticking Clock: The Finite Nature of Time

I am torn in a hard place. I cannot stay here because I cannot build a life of value or purpose where I am. This place, more than any other, makes me feel imprisoned. He never made me feel that way; quite the opposite.

But I am running out of time. Forty-four is not old, but it is not young. Time is not endless for us humans; it is finite. It is a ticking clock that will stop sooner rather than later. The years are flying by faster and faster. Small health things become big health things—that is the nature of advancing age, the nature of being human.

I don't have time to waste.

Securing the Future: The Only Certainty

My single focus must be securing my future—so I can be cared for properly, without becoming the property of the state or locked away and forgotten. I must stick true to this, because I don't have anyone to help secure my future, and I am starting at below zero. That is terrifying at forty-four.

I must be single-minded and focused until I am secure, which will take years. I must be prepared that it will be me alone in the world. I must have things in place to secure my well-being so that I am not put away and forgotten.

This is the necessity. This is why, when I leave here, I cannot be pulled into anything with him. It would distract me and pull me away from what is the absolute, existential requirement of my life now.

This is the finality. This is the farewell.

The Cruelest Exchange: Killing Hope to Survive

It is enclosing that door, in that finality, that makes leaving so difficult. This "in-between" space right now is awful and debilitating, but there is still the hope. In leaving, I must forsake that hope. I must kill it so that I can survive.

That is what makes this difficult. I am hoping to thrive, but I will settle for just surviving. I have to kill the hope of what is in my heart and what my soul cries for—to secure my physical well-being and care as I advance in age to the inevitable.

It is the cruelest thing: to have to sacrifice hope for security—for the ability to make sure that I can afford to have people there to care for me when I cannot.

This has become the focus of my life. This must become the most important thing. When starting below zero financially—in the negative—all I can do now is prepare for the long winter of old age by scrambling as fast as I can to accumulate as much financial security as possible.

Otherwise, I will be lost and forgotten in a square box that no one ever comes to visit: a holding cell for the aged until they enter their final box. You spend those years alone, only to be placed in a box to be alone eternally.