Missing you… it comes in waves, not something that consumes me like it used to drowning me in your absence. It just happens in little moments. When I hear a song on the radio. When I’m walking through the bookstore and I see your favorite book. When I read something good myself and I realize I don’t have anyone to share that with anymore. It happens on certain streets and in certain places. I get taken back looking across the room to a time when you’d smile staring at me watching you out of the corner of my eye.

I still find letters I never sent and things I meant to tell you.

There’s always a hundred things I want to say but then when I see you I kind of forget them all, I said laughing.

Write it down, you reply. When you see me next you can tell me everything.

So I did. And I still do. Even though so much time has passed I still look at that list of everything you’ve missed lately. Everything I wish I could call you up and tell you.

I type only to delete because I realize even if the message got delivered what’s change us.

I would to tell you I’m happy. That I met someone who is as good of a man as you are maybe even better. I don’t want to say it to be boastful, you just were always the person I’d tell everything to.

Maybe I had to lose you to get that. And that’s what hurts. I couldn’t have both the person I deserved and the person I wanted coexisting in my heart so one you had to go.

I think we both knew our time ran out like some hourglass that seemed to have so many pebbles then it didn’t.

Goodbye wasn’t uttered. Everything just stopped.

Sometimes I look at him and I wonder will he ever know me the way you did? Will he ever take the time to learn every curve and every sharp edge? Will he be able to read the things I don’t say and know to ask if I’m okay?

Will he ask about my parents and work to build relationships with them?

Will he grab my hand when I’m nervous? Will he hold me close and tell me he’s proud of me? Will he be the beers that go down like water and will he know I like coors better than bud without even asking what I want to drink.

I don’t want him to be you but there were parts of you I loved so deeply. Parts of you that changed every expectation I had in others after knowing you.

But part of me still misses you even as I watch myself fall for someone new.

I reach for my phone and look at your name how casual and cordial our last conversation was so long ago. That was never us. We’d never tiptoe around what to say and when to say it. We were the talks at 2AM. Challenging each other. Pushing each other. Making each other better and believing in the other person more than ourselves sometimes. We were every first conversation in the day never running out of things to say.

And now we can’t even say hello without it being awkward.

I knew even before you left how much it was gonna hurt to see you go. When that moment hits you, when you’re living for now but you know this memory right now is going to hurt later, you’re overcome with both joy and appreciation for even having this moment and pain because you know it’s not going to last.

I’ve moved on and I don’t miss you like I used you but I have my moments. Moments where I want to tell you things. Moments where I want to know everything first and not find out about it across social media like everyone else. Moments where I realize sometimes the people you are closest to are the ones you grow farthest apart from.

Sometimes I wonder if it hurts you like it did me or did I take the pain for both of us. The words I love you carelessly slipped out of my mouth but I meant every word of it. And I would not take it back even if I could. You taught me what it was like to love again and for that I’ll always be grateful for you.

Sometimes I wonder if you miss me too. Do you think of me every time you see the gift I got you and do you still have it? Are there books you wish you could share? Songs where my memory stays with you? But most of all my simplistic hope is that even for the moments we were in each other’s lives, I hope I made yours better. I hope I made you better. And I hope you’re happy. Because when you were a part of each other’s lives the happiness you brought to mine is hard to put into words. I look at my reflection and I see parts of you there embedded within me. And maybe that’s what it’s about taking someone with you even long after they are gone.