Departure

The days passed slowly after Diane left. My life was in a state of disrepair prior to her departure and when she left I lost any direction I may have had. I drove alone but the ritual lost its sense of hope that things would get better. I kept driving through the dark nights thinking that I might alleviate this pain, but I was just an engine running oblivious to where I was going.

After months of despair, I decided I would leave too. I would let go of this life that once included Diane and now had me as its sole protagonist. I would go somewhere else and begin again. I would start by vacating this shabby apartment and discarding this sorrow. I opened a drawer in my desk to get an envelope for the notice letter I was planning to send to the landlord and there it was. The stained yellow slip of paper sat plainly in the back of the drawer. The pain ripped through me again as if I was reliving her last steps out of the apartment and into a world that did not include me. That sheet was evidence that she once truly loved me. In this time of uncertainty about any love, I needed something to remind me that these feelings were real and that they weren’t just mine. There were hundreds of them once, now the last remaining one lay in this lonely desk. They were yellow petals to remind me of our love. In sunnier days she would make little drawings on a little yellow note pad and stick them throughout the apartment. Places she knew I would go in the morning… the bathroom mirror, the kitchen cabinets, the refrigerator and the table. The most elaborate drawings were always left on the door to remind of how much she loved me in that brief moment before I stepped outside. Here lay those memories crackling and old like dried out leaves.