A string of text messages

I love you.

I always say it and I always will. Until the words look funny written down and they feel funny coming out of my mouth. But only in the way that a word becomes worn out when you say it too many times in a row and not in the way that it becomes any less true. My mouth will get used to forming the letters one by one and I'll be able to type them with my eyes closed. But I won't get used to the feeling I get when I say it because when I say it, it's like striking a match every time because every time I remember the first time I said it. The match heats up my body and dies slowly, over and over again. I never run out of matches and they always strike on the first try.

A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out

I've always been fascinated with time. I'm an extremely nostalgic person and the type that's highly affected by the changing of seasons. I always jokingly have my boyfriend explain to me how time works, because one drunken night he and a friend tried to explain black holes and the spacetime continuum to me with a plastic sandwich bag and a pencil.

But what's most interesting to me is how time heals. I used to harbour a lot of shame and anger and sadness for an experience I had earlier this year, so much so that even hearing the person's name made me sick to my stomach. I was young and inexperienced and desperate to be loved so I threw myself into something that was bound to fail. I saw all of the signs but I let it crumble around me anyway. For a long time after it happened, I couldn't see or hear anything associated with that person without feeling sick and upset. So I did everything in my power to avoid just that.

But I recently came across screenshots of old texts with this person and current photos of them and I didn't feel anything. I could say that this is because I've grown and learned as a person and I'm in a much happier place, but really the answer is that time passed. I forgot about it. I let go of my shame, not because someone helped me or I took conscious action to get rid of it, but because time heals. The emotions left because they became outdated and irrelevant and useless. 

I don't need a plastic sandwich bag and a pencil to explain that.

The hardest thing I had to learn was to allow this healing. I'm impatient and I like to fix problems rather than let them wash over me. But when the damage is done, all you can do is wait for the skin to grow over again. Slap a bandage on it and leave it alone. 

I had to realize that, whether I like it or not, my memories are my own. Time replaces the old ones at the forefront with new, sometimes better ones, but they're all in there somewhere. I'm not the person I was nine months ago, but it doesn't mean I have to forget who I was either. That person is outdated and less useful to me now, but she existed. What I don't need to carry with me is her pain. Time took that away for me. 

The skin has grown over. My new memories at this point in my life are the happiest ones I've ever had. Some are painful as well, but they're bandaged and waiting for time to heal. The skin has grown over the old ones, and the rest is a black hole.