What To Do When You Miss Someone

It hits you like the school bus hit Regina George on Mean Girls. It’s quick, it’s unexpected, but it gets the job done. That is, to shake things up a bit. It could happen on a quiet morning as you read the newspaper or on a dim, rainy afternoon. It could happen while you’re reveling the view on the highest peak, literally feeling like the ruler of the world or while you're puking your guts out on a sidewalk somewhere because you drank too much again. You could be at your best or at your worst. Either way, your brain doesn't choose when you'll think, ''I wish s/he were here right now.'' But you realize that they're not, so for a minute or two your heart sinks a little knowing that some people are just not going to be there at a snap of a finger or a press of a button. So there you are, in the middle of a work day, a party, or all alone browsing through your Facebook, sideswiped by nostalgia and you don't know what to do with it.

Missing people is not a very pleasant experience. I'm not talking about how you’d write 'I miss you! LOL!'' on someone's Facebook timeline because you haven't seen each other in months. I mean it as a time when you really miss a person who's been a huge part of your life and they're not anymore. It's when you miss a person because of who they are and what they mean to you; that kind of missing. 

If there was a way to describe it, I'd say that it's a bit like having some part of you tugged incessantly at periods at a time that can't be easily shaken off. It’s like that leak on the ceiling that you always forget to fix until it’s already raining and a puddle of water is on the floor. It's kind of like that. And it is when you feel the pangs of longing to be in the company of someone that you entertain the possibility that maybe you've always been missing them and that a single word, laugh, quirk or slip of the tongue was all it took to feel everything. You'd think, why bother missing them when you could just go out and see them? Well, sometimes it's not that easy. There are just some people that you can't/shouldn't just go out and see. These are the people that have left your life. Intentionally or not, it doesn’t really matter. And so, without the means to dispel the little ''itch'' to see or speak to someone, what does one do?  What do you do when you miss someone who passed away/left you/drifted away/moved away/stopped calling/unfriended/doesn't miss you?

I guess the best answer is to just give in to the feeling and miss them. There's no point in resisting the urge to feel sad about someone when it'll just end up coming back after x number of weeks/months/years. Think of it as a gift to that other person, him/her being in your thoughts and missing them. It's not fair, of course, that you give them much thought and it's not reciprocated, but there's really nothing you can do about that part. You miss who you miss regardless of whether or not they miss you back. You can cry about it, if you want. You can visit where they are, in vast lands of greenery and marble. If you're brave enough, you can call old friends who, for a while, became people who knew everything about you to catch up on old times. Or you can simply say the three words without audience and hope that the winds take them across cities, landscapes, seas and maybe even beyond the clouds to send the message to its intended recipients.

Breathe in.

I miss you.

Breathe out.

Back to the real world.