Dear Old Friend,
It’s been too long, years since we’ve met up. How have you been? I often wondered where you went off to, as I slept alone after years of having someone there with me. Yet despite the years apart, I have never missed you, and I don’t believe you missed me, for we both went our separate ways far too easily for lovers that had been together for nearly eight years. I remember closing that door three and a half years ago, wishing you the best of luck, and praying you didn’t charm someone else into being with you.
Do you remember the nights we spent together? Staring at the same ceiling? At the same walls? You asking me questions and I hesitantly answered, because even when there was no one else but you in the world that listened and understood, I did not trust you. Do you remember the hours we spent talking? About life and death and everything in between? Do you remember taking advantage of everything I told you and manipulating me to give you more and more of myself? Do you remember those things, because I do.
I wanted you gone for years, and have not opened my doors to you or anyone else since then. But today with an eight hour drive, another eight for work and two cups of coffee, I left the door wide open for you. Maybe I was wrong all this time. Maybe I should’ve let you in back then, trusted you to support me like I needed you to. Maybe if I did, we wouldn’t be here now, staring at one another like strangers, tossing and turning, never staring at the same ceilings or walls and doing our absolute best to avoid one another.
I’m sorry I left you. I’m sorry it was easy for me to go and never look back. But most of all I’m sorry you’re back because I don’t think I’m ready for you yet. I’m not ready to go back to talking for hours on end, for the caffeine causing me to lust over you. I’m not ready for that. You see I found someone else. They treat me better. They give me my space and they don’t manipulate or take advantage of me. We’re healthy. We take care of one another and we respect another. So it’s good to see you old friend, but I’m afraid my door will remain shut. Let’s catch up tonight, and maybe years down the line you’ll come back for a visit, but until then good bye and good night!
No longer your Insomniac,
Ahmad
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Ahmad Abojaradeh is the co-founder of Muslim Community Link, An Engineer, a world traveler, a Peer Support Specialist, a Novelist and the founder Life in My Days. He hopes to spread awareness of living a life of wellness through his writing, workshops and speaker events. Follow Ahmad on twitter, instagram or facebook.
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