I Didn’t Stop Loving You, I Outgrew You

Here’s the thing: I guess when you tell a love story, you have to start from that one little moment.

You know which one I’m talking about. The one that’s so small and so insignificant, but it hits you all at once and you just know. You know that this is your person. You are so sure and so fierce in your love.

You don’t need any more convincing; you aren’t scared anymore. You feel this calmness in your chest, and it’s like for the first time, when you breathe, you can feel your heartbeat, cool and steady and in tune with someone else.

And you know that somehow, someway, you were just meant to find one another. Maybe the stars aligned, maybe you knew one another in a past life or a dream, but you knew each other way before this — long before this moment.

Well, I had a moment like that. Just like everyone else.

But that moment seems faded now. It feels hollow, like the wind came and pierced holes right through it.

We both know that I had it with you.

Maybe it was a random day in October, when we were walking side by side, watching the leaves fall and change. Maybe it was drinking coffee while writing and reading together in the early sunshine. Maybe it was that one night when we stayed up all night and talked about the future and about stars.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I could never fall out of love with those moments. Every single one of them is imprinted on my heart.

And I know, deep down, that I’m never really going to be able to fall out of love with you either.

Try as I might, I know that those little moments are a collection of the love that I will always hide in my heart for you. I didn’t learn to let go.

I learned to move on.

To withstand the world without you and to keep my heart an arm’s length away.

See that’s the thing. When it comes down to it, feelings change. And more importantly, people change. That’s what happened with us. With our story.

There was a start. There was a middle. And now finally, after all this time, I am writing in the end. I don’t know where to go from here, and maybe you don’t either. It took some getting used to. But I know, or at least I hope, that the person I am becoming is still able to love with the same heart that I loved you with.

Just because it’s not you anymore, doesn’t mean that those feelings weren’t real. They were as real to me as anything ever was and anything ever will be.

Because I know that even in your absence, even months after you stopped returning calls and texts, even when I wanted you then more than ever, I had to outgrow you.

Sure, there is a small spot where you are constant and present. But I think the important thing is that you and your memory don’t take up as much space anymore.

I needed that to happen. Not just to heal, but to be whole again.

I used to write our story more like heartbreak than anything. I used to dwell on all the times you promised me things and didn’t follow through, all the times I gave you chance after chance, only to be left. Again.

And while those things still remain true, I know that I am not better off without you, but I am better.

Every day gets a little brighter, a little more hopeful. And every day I am reminded that what we had was love.

It was just a love that wasn’t meant to last. It was fleeting for the both of us. It was drawn out. More intense in those honest moments of need. And in some ways, it became a way to prop ourselves up when we needed it the most.

Wherever you are now, and whatever it is that you are doing, I want you to know that I still think of you often, and with only good and pure intentions.

Most of all, I just want you to know that I never meant to forget you. I only grew into someone who didn’t fit with you anymore.