Cleaning up the leftovers

At the end of a relationship, whether it’s professional or personal, one of the hardest things is to let go and stop caring. Suddenly the daily details shouldn’t matter anymore; suddenly we ought to be detached, disinterested, and cold.

Sometimes the main purpose of the relationship is broken, the love is gone, the interest in a job has disappeared, but the smallest details stick around like the old post-its that we find at the back of our agenda. Sometimes it’s hard to un-care.

It’s hearing that someone is sick and wanting to have a word for them. It’s surprising oneself cleaning up a display on a drugstore shelf over a year after leaving the company that manufactures them. Is the force of the habit something that disappears magically one day? What finally erases the leftovers of a relationship?

I had a conversation over the phone tonight with someone that I recently decided to end both a personal and a professional relationship with. The later one taking a little longer to see the end of, the communication was inevitable. And with it, came the string of those little things that transform the interaction between two people into a relationship. Those things that make hanging up the phone a moment where the breath shortens and the heart sinks. Because now comes the times to stop caring.