Wasting a lifetime just to admire you.
“Somewhere between stolen glances and unspoken feelings, I found myself spending a lifetime admiring someone who never knew they were being admired.”
There is something strangely beautiful about admiring someone you know you may never have. It is like watching the sunset from a window, knowing that no matter how beautiful it looks, you can never keep it from disappearing. You simply sit there, appreciating every color until the sky turns dark.
Perhaps that is what I have been doing all this time — wasting a lifetime just to admire you.
I have become familiar with the little things about you, even those you probably never notice about yourself. The way you smile, the sound of your laughter, the way your eyes seem to light up when you talk about something you love. I have collected these little moments like photographs, keeping them somewhere in my mind where nobody else can see them. You may consider them ordinary days, but somehow, they have become the memories I revisit whenever I miss something I never really had.
Isn’t it funny how someone can occupy so much space in your thoughts without even knowing they have a place there?
I wonder how many times I have unconsciously looked for you in a crowded room, how many conversations I have silently wished you were part of, and how many ordinary moments I have turned into something special simply because you were there. I have learned to appreciate you in ways I could never explain, finding happiness in the smallest possibility of seeing you, even if it means having nothing more than a passing glance.
And maybe that is the saddest part: I have become so good at admiring you that I almost forgot what it feels like to be noticed.
I don’t know whether I am waiting for something to happen or simply holding on to a feeling that has nowhere to go. Perhaps I have romanticized the distance, making a beautiful story out of something that was never meant to become one. I keep finding reasons to stay, even when there is no promise that staying will ever lead me somewhere.
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But I cannot blame you for that. You never asked me to wait. You never promised me anything. You were simply existing, living your life, unaware that somewhere along the way, someone had made you a favorite part of theirs.
Sometimes, I wonder how different things would have been if I had spent all those moments choosing myself instead of finding ways to admire you. How many opportunities have I overlooked while looking in your direction? How many beautiful things have passed me by because my attention was always somewhere else?
Maybe one day, I will finally understand that admiration should not become a lifetime sentence. That someone can be beautiful without having to become yours, and that not every feeling deserves an eternity of waiting.
Until then, I hope I learn to turn this admiration into something gentler. Something that doesn’t require me to keep looking back, something that allows me to appreciate what I once felt without making it the center of everything.
Because if there is one thing I am slowly realizing, it is this:
I don’t regret finding something beautiful in you. I only hope that, in all the years I spent admiring your existence, I didn’t forget to live my own.
And perhaps, that is how I will finally let go — not by pretending you were never special, but by accepting that some people are meant to be admired, not accompanied.
You were a beautiful chapter in a story you never knew you were part of. And I hope the rest of my story will finally be about me.
“I spent so much time looking at you like you were the most beautiful thing life had to offer, only to realize that I was slowly missing out on the beauty of my own life.”
