Forget

It's been almost a whole year now; short about a week and a half if I recall, and I still think about you every day. I can't forget, no matter how hard I try.

They say I should move on, that I never needed you like I thought I did and I'm better off without you, and I agree.

But at this point, I'm pretty sure I'll never stop thinking about you, checking out what you're up to, wishing I had the courage to ask to be let back in.

I've decided to forget you. No matter how hard it might be to do just that. You no longer exist to me and we never met nor hung out.

Sometimes I stop knowing people and things. The easiest word to describe it is "forget", but I don't really forget them. I just spontaneously and temporarily cease to know them in the context of my experiences and they stop being familiar.

The first time that I remember this happening I was five years old, watching dust motes spiral in slanted beams of morning light. I was aware of having seen dust like this before. I knew that the sparkle was a trick that the dawn sun played on the dust specks. But as I lie still in my basement bedroom, they stopped being familiar and I rediscovered them over and over, explaining the phenomenon to myself and watching them twirl in front of me.

This has happened many times since then, usually with trees and people. Rediscovering people is always the most exciting. Sometimes I'll feel suddenly and entirely detached from the people to whom I'm closest, and I take the opportunity to read their writings, look at photos and videos, and recall their interactions with me from a third-person view. I invariably fall in love again with a new appreciation of the person, not just as a part of me and my life, but as a fantastic individual that will grow and develop with or without me. Also invariably, it gives me a sense of urgency to develop myself so that I don't get left behind.