Side by Side, Yet Apart

Two people can lie side by side in the same bed and yet inhabit opposite ends of the earth.

Even sitting next to each other, the emotional distance that remains between two people makes the span between opposite shores of an ocean seem like nothing at all.

With some people, you'll only have contact born of necessity. There's no real love, affection, or tenderness there. Only the skin of what we call a relationship remains, like a snake's shed skin. Yet the snake itself has long since slipped away on some blazing afternoon under the harsh sun, and we never even notice it's gone.

Do you know when you'll finally realize it?

When you see that even your smallest, most innocent oversights become faults in the other person's eyes, when your presence or your touch carries no real weight with them anymore.

The sixth sense tells us so much.

Who is merely using you, who truly loves you—you can sense it all. Whether you choose to step away or stay put is another matter entirely, but you do understand what's happening.

There's a saying that goes around... when people die, they rot and decay; when they're alive, they change. But no, my friend—sometimes the living become more lifeless than the dead... I've seen it so often! When you're side by side but never truly close, when the language of eyes, the melancholy in the chest, the fear of uncertainty can't be conveyed to the other person even with words, when your presence holds no value for the one beside you—this is how a wall rises between two people, day by day, until it touches the sky. Eventually this solid wall can no longer be broken. Actually, people choose not to break down this wall, quite deliberately.

And then... then one day, after meeting again after a long time, you'll discover that you two are merely acquaintances now, no longer dear or beloved to each other. Their voice, their laughter, their touch—none of it moves either of you anymore. When parting, you don't even turn back with a gentle smile to say "take care."

What a shame—while we have instruments to measure the distances between planets, we've never invented one to measure how many light-years of distance have opened up between two people sitting just an inch apart.

Sometimes you don't need to leave or go far away to let go. You can journey to the infinite distances beyond the stars while sitting right next to each other.