This Is How I Know I’m Over You

I don’t think about how you make me feel. There was too much time spent chasing that feeling. The feeling that came when you looked at me and I felt safe, loved, whole. Too much time has been wasted reaching into the depths of my memories just to dig myself into a comfortable state of nostalgia. Pushing myself into memories is just one more thing that kept you close to me, in some way. But keeping you close isn’t something I need to do anymore. It’s not something I want to do anymore.

After a breakup, all we want to hear, and all we want to say, is that we won’t forget the other person: we’ll keep them close to our hearts, always. There is no metaphor we won’t reach for in order to say, in a roundabout, far-reaching way, that we don’t want them to forget about us. But the more I think back to anytime I promised you I’d keep you close, the more I realize how unfair that was to me. Promising to keep you close was just one more thing that kept me from moving on.

I don’t think about how you’re doing without me. Spending my days hoping that you were still pining for me was too exhausting. Draining back-to-back-to-back hours wondering if you were thinking about me, playing with the idea that maybe our parting would be the first step toward a stronger version of us, was a lot of waiting and not much else. I am not waiting on you, or hoping one of us will change our minds.

I don’t know what you do with your days, or how you spend your time anymore. I have no concept of your routine, give no second thought to the schedule I used to know as well as you knew mine. I’ve forgotten whether you’re a morning or a night person because it no longer affects my sleep schedule.

I no longer want to be reminded of the way your hands felt folded in mind, the way your arms pulled me in. I am done remembering the parts of you that aren’t there anymore. Maybe the best parts of you only existed between us. If so, I am happy that I helped those parts of you surface, happy I was there to share those moments with you. But I can’t spend more time searching for qualities you once had, or love we once shared.

I don’t know your number anymore, and my fingertips have lost the muscle memory that once subconsciously typed in the ten digits that instantly connected me to you. The same muscle memory that would allow me to respond to your text before stopping myself.

I have no knowledge of what your life is any more — and finally, I’ve learned that that’s alright.

Love is most confusing when we are simultaneously trying to hold on to it and let it go. For so long, holding on seemed fruitless, but letting go seemed impossible. But knowing that you aren’t a huge part of my life anymore doesn’t scare me, nor does it discount what we once shared. I do not feel empty or incomplete. I only feel like I know who I am outside of you — outside of us. And that’s how I know I’m over you.