I Miss You, But I Understand Why We Don’t Talk Anymore

I miss you. I want you to know that.

Maybe I don’t miss you the way you would want me to. Maybe just by saying it alone I make things harder than I need to. But I can’t pretend I don’t- you were a part of me life that doesn’t get replaced easily- if ever. We had a connection that rivals most in my mind, and to act as if I don’t feel that void every now and then is impossible.

Yet there are reasons we aren’t part of each other’s lives anymore. I know that. I know that we had potential to take things to the next level, and we didn’t. I know that we could’ve been something incredible and perhaps the best thing to happen to either one of us. But we didn’t. Instead, a combination of life, excuses, and hesitation crept in and pushed us just far enough apart for other things to come in. For other priorities. For other people.

It didn’t fall apart all in one day, but sometimes it feels like it did.

One moment, you were the only person who I could think about- the one who kept me up at night with your words and conversations, the one who took up so much space in me. The next, you were still all I could think about- but this time it was wondering if I should’ve tried harder to hold onto you. You were still keeping me up at night- all the words I never said haunting me and almost having me spill them all out to you far too late for them to matter anymore. You still took up all this space in me- and then left the gaping hole behind once we stopped talking to each other.

Life did go on, though. It has a funny way of doing that- choosing to keep moving forward even when part of your world feels like it stopped. So we both moved forward, too. I started a different path, and I honestly was happier with it than I expected. Things these days are actually going well, and I don’t feel any regret over giving this opportunity a chance.

Yet when really good things happen, I still think to tell you. When certain things happen in my life that I know only you would really understand, it takes everything in me not to send you a message. I still wonder about your life and how things are going for you. I think about reaching out to you more times than I would admit, but I don’t.

Because for one reason or another, we didn’t fight to keep each other in our lives. We didn’t try to save whatever we had from the damage that inevitably appeared; we chose to let the ship sink. No one can point fingers and assign blame. These days, we live lives without each other, and perhaps it’s for the best. Maybe we don’t need to see how the other is doing now that we know that we aren’t part of the picture. Maybe it would’ve been too hard to hold on and try to keep each other in the forefront of our new lives, and so we let go so that we didn’t have to find out. Maybe it would be too hard to watch us move on with others, even if they made us happier than we would’ve been together. Maybe we would’ve inevitably fallen apart in a worse way and we saved each other some damage.

I know that in the end, it doesn’t really matter the reasons of what might’ve happened. All that matters anymore is that I think we still would want the best things for the both of us- to find someone who loves us, to be successful in our passions, to live the lives we always hoped we would- even if that means we aren’t around to see it.

So believe me when I say that I understand why we don’t talk anymore.

But it doesn’t make me miss you any less.