We all have events in our lives that we analyze over and over in our minds. We pick apart our actions and wonder, “What if I went about the situation differently?” We create these false realities in our head of how it could have played out.

Out of all of the “what if’s” that play out in my head, you are my favorite one. You are at the top of the list of every situation that I overthink. My mind has become a storage unit of every memory of us, each file labeled starting from the first day I met you to the day I lost you.

At night in particular, when the noise from the day simmers down, I find myself rummaging through this storage unit. I open each file and sit down on the floor, combing through every moment I spent with you. Every laugh we shared, every smile you managed to put on my face. Every fight that would get out of hand, every door slammed on our way out, and every screaming match the other would try to win. As I rummage through these files, starting from the beginning of us to the end of us, all that runs through my mind is the endless possibilities of what if.

What if I never met you? Maybe my heart would hurt a little less than it does nowadays. What if we didn’t let our egos take up so much space in our relationship? What if we stopped being naive and started fearing the possibility of losing one another? What if I didn’t walk out on you in the middle of that fight? What if we had fought a little harder for each other? What if you had realized sooner that my love was unconditional? What if I never stop loving you?

All these “what if’s” race around my mind as I start to create some dimensional universe where these scenarios play out. Reality soon kicks in and I close our files. I come to terms with the fact that no amount of “what if’s” could’ve saved us from the inevitable. [tc-mark=