Goodbye To Love
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how strange it is to no longer have someone.
Not in the obvious way. I mean, I still have people around me. I still hace conversations to answer, places to go, things to do. My days are not empty. They just don’t belong to anyone in particular anymore.
There used to be a person at the center of all of that. Someone I would tell things to without thinking twice. Sometimes it was something important, sometimes it was just a stupid thing I knew would make him laugh. I didn’t realize how much space a person could take up in your everyday life until they were suddenly no longer there.
At first, I thought I would always miss that space.
I thought I would keep wanting him back, or at least keep wondering that would have happened if we had tried a little harder. But somewhere along the way, that feeling changed. I don’t really miss the relationship anymore. I don’t secretly wish we could go back to it. There are no imaginary conversations in my head about what I would say if he came back.
Sometimes I just wonder how he’s doing.
That’s probably the part I still find a little strange. I can go days without thinking about him, and then something small happens and I wonder whether he’s eating well, whether he’s sleeping enough, whether the things he used to worry about are finally getting easier. I wonder if his life turned out the way he wanted it to.
And then I realized I don’t get to know anymore.
I think that’s when it really sinks in. Not when someone leaves, but when you slowly understand that their life will keep happening without you in it. There will be new days you know nothing about, new people you’ll never meet, new memories being made without your name anywhere in them.
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Maybe mine is the same.
There is something oddly quiet about realizing that I don’t have anyone right now. No one I’m waiting for. No one I’m trying to hold onto. No one whose absence I’m secretly hoping will turn into a return.
I used to be afraid of that.
Now, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just tired enough to stop being afraid of things I can’t change.
Maybe love will happen again someday. Maybe it won’t. I used to think I needed to know which one it would be. Now. I think I can let the future remain unanswered.
For once, I don’t want to search for someone just because being alone feels unfamiliar.
I can miss someone and still let them go. I can care about someone and never speak to them again. I can look back at what we had and admit that it mattered without needing it to mean that we should still have each other.
Maybe that’s what goodbye means this time.
Not goodbye to him. Not even goodbye to the possibility of loving someone again.
Just goodbye to the part of the that keeps believing I need someone beside me for my life to feel complete.
I don’t have anyone.
And I think, finally, I can let that be true without making it into a tragedy.
