All The Things I Tell Myself I Won’t Miss About Him

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I’ve heard stories of people ending relationships and I’ve heard stories of people being dumped. Some tell the stories of being dumped through laughter because they’ve clearly moved on and others tell their stories with a hint of pain in their voices. You feel the urge to ask more questions but know you shouldn’t because you can tell by their eyes that they too have the same questions. The first time a boy told me he didn’t love me anymore was when I was 18.

It was three days before my senior prom and he managed to talk me into staying as his date. When I think about it today, I’m glad we went together because it worked as the kind of closure a person needs after a break-up. I remember the way we looked at each other during the night knowing it was the last time we would be together; when he noticed my expression beginning to fall, he would grab my hand and hold it tightly in a way that made me know I would end up being okay. We ended that night at my house where we shared one last kiss before I watched him leave.

Watching somebody leave me was painful and had me feeling broken for months, but I eventually moved on. Not every question goes answered because not every question has one, but time soon erases them away. What happens when somebody leaves without a goodbye? What happens when you’re all of a sudden invisible? What happens when you feel as though you’re standing in front of them while waving frantically and they glide right through your transparency?

Last week began the most difficult journey of moving on I’ve ever had to endure. The person I pictured my future with was all of a sudden nowhere to be seen. I didn’t get a “we should see other people” nor an “it’s over”. What I received was nothing but silence. Like every relationship, we had our troubles and we each had our flaws. Having him in my life left me happy and whole; being able to speak to him as soon as I woke up and before I closed my eyes was that of a privilege. I felt lucky to be in love.

Now he’s gone and I feel as though I’m tied to a rope and I’m pulling frantically to reach the end, but it’s limitless. He decided to cut himself out without telling me why. The texts and calls stopped, and all of mine went unanswered. Anxiety hasn’t left my side and continues to give me her own theories on why I’m the one to blame. I can’t escape him from invading my thoughts.

Taking showers aren’t relaxing anymore to me. They’re now a place where I numbingly stand for 20 minutes and stare at the wall through eyes that have forgotten how to blink. It’s a place where I practice how to speak to him without shedding a tear and so far I’m unsuccessful.

I miss him everyday. What I do know is that I’m not going to miss the way he insisted on playing movies so late at night knowing he would end up falling asleep 20 minutes in. I’m not going to miss the way he always had a craving for sushi and ate so much that he swore he was going to die from a “food coma”.

I’m not going to miss offering him the last few bites of my meal, just because I wanted him to have it even though I was still secretly hungry. I’m not going to miss the amounts of coffee he drank a day and how he took each one with a splash of milk. I’m not going to miss watching him put on his dark-rimmed glasses over his ocean eyes. I’m not going to miss hearing him plan for our future road trip to Alaska.

I’m not going to miss the way he talked in his sleep nor am I going to miss how he slightly twitched as soon as he reached his dream state. I’m not going to miss how visible the dimples on his cheeks got when he laughed out loud. I’m not going to miss hanging out with him and his best friends in a city that never fails to entertain.

I’m not going to miss how he always predicted when my next inappropriate joke was going to be. I’m not going to miss going to bed at a decent hour because of how content I feel. I’m not going to miss being so in love with someone that the love sometimes made me emotional when talking about him to my closest friends.

It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself these things; I know they aren’t true. I can tell myself everyday that I’m better off alone or that it’s his loss, but at the moment I don’t feel that way. I know that him leaving isn’t my fault and I know that I wasn’t treated with the respect I deserved.

I’m not writing this to make him seem like a monster nor am I writing this in hopes that he would read it. I’m writing this for myself and for anybody else who feels abandoned. I’m trying to find the closure that we didn’t receive from the people we cared most about. I will always love him and always love his flaws. My only wish is that he loved mine.