I'm not calling you a ghost, just stop haunting me

I just grabbed it off your floor one time I stayed the night, it was the first thing my fingers touched. It was comfortable and over-sized and it was yours, so I loved it. It hit my legs in such a place that wearing it without pants around your house was kind of indicative of the intimacy of our relationship: not a shirt to wear in mixed company, better suited for 2 am treks to the kitchen to eat grapes than anything else, really. Something to throw on if I needed to climb out from under your five blankets--Duck Tales, a unicorn quilt you made yourself, Thomas the Tank Engine and two others I can't quite place--in the middle of the night, something to keep me warm and semi-decent until I came back to you.

Things are getting easier. I can breathe again. You knew what this past Sunday meant to me, and regardless of whether we're speaking or not, if you ever cared about me you would have congratulated me--it could have been a message on facebook, for all I care. At this point, you're really not someone I need in my life right now. I don't know you anymore.

I had my last counseling appointment today. I have a plan, and I have a list of things I can if any urge comes on strong, and I'm aware of the flip-flop that seems to happen between my self-injury and my eating issues--it's all about challenging. What I think about myself, what I think about you, what I think about those around me, family, strangers, people I've only met once, people I've bumped into by accident. It's challenging in every sense of the word.

And I get to a point where I'm ok with you not being in my life. Where yes, it still hurts, but I at least didn't ignore it. I dealt with it, and I'm stronger for it. You see, that's how it works: you don't ignore it until you're strong enough to deal with it, you tackle it head-on and you are stronger for it. There are only a few things I can think of where dealing with an issue before you're ready can be detrimental, and you have experienced none of them.

So I'm ok. I feel good. And then I see you and why are you on campus and why are you wearing that shirt you know I always wore that shirt and you nod at me but you haven't acknowledged me in over a month and I don't know what to do with myself so I just stop and let my heart speak for me and all it can do is pound. And I keep walking, because I have to.

Seeing that shirt on you didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. I think you're starting to be a ghost in my life.