You don't just cut a complex knot

People are generally scared of endings, of saying goodbye. That's why they have a strong tendency to be scared of beginnings.

I don't know that for sure. I don't have data to support that. I don't even attempt to find anything that would tell me I am right. But that is something I've said from experience.

Because I'm like that.

My friends always ask why I don't want to get married. Or why I run away from anyone who wears commitment where their skins should be. Or why I refuse to believe the fact that there are relationships--friendships, kinships--that can last for a good, long while. I give them a lot of responses: my parents, the kind of family I grew up into, people I've lost, people I left and let leave. But even if all those reasons are put together, they only make up less than half of the true rationale.

The truth is, I hate endings. No, scratch that. I am scared of endings. I am scared of having to say goodbye, of letting go, of waking up one day to find out that one of the people I give utmost importance to has ceased being a part of my life.

I used to be not scared of those things. But you know what they say, one of the reasons people change is because they were hurt so much that they have to.

Since I was young, I've never known how to say bye-bye to my parents when I leave the house or when I watch them leave. My father used to drive me to school (he operates a school service) and I ride together with the other students at the backseat until I have to get off. And always, when the ride ends, I could only throw him a look.

I have made a few adjustments now. I holler "I'm leaving!" while on my way to the door, I nod and flick the outside lights off when my parents say they're going. I kiss the cheeks of some of my friends or when they don't like it, I wave and sometimes I smile. I deal with goodbyes, at the surface level of course, better. And maybe I can get a little credit if I'd like to say I've gotten in slightly good terms with Mr. Letting Go.

But that, I guess, is a ten percent progress. A mere progress. A small progress, especially when you consider all those goodbyes piled up in my to-do drawer. And even with that hollering and kissing-cheeks thing, I still am the same scared girl who cried in the staircase of her high school building five years ago. I still am the same scared girl who couldn't smile and honestly not give a damn about her best friend's wedding. I still am the girl who's scared for all the wrong reasons.

For how long I would be like this, I don't know. If I would ever be not like this, I can't tell. Maybe it would all just go away when I meet someone who would show me holding on is actually not a very good thing. Maybe, like the dust in my windowsill, it would just be wiped clean by someone who cares enough. Maybe it would be like a complex knot in the hands of a very patient Cub Scout, it wouldn't be simply cut but rather it would be analyzed and painstakingly untangled. Or maybe I could start acknowledging those people when I meet them instead of running away from them and shutting the door in their faces.

It's gonna be a long, hard, twisted, wretched way up, because I've been down here for so long now and admittedly, I haven't been good enough to not dig and bury myself deeper. But I'm not a lost cause. At least, I'd like to think I'm not.