There are certain people who enter our orbits and make us forget what life was like before them. You’re probably thinking of some of them right now, those humans who change us for the better and ignite something within us that is impossible to quiet. They just get us, and we get them. We can’t imagine a future without them and we sure as hell don’t want to. The chemistry is undeniable. The connection is there.

And oftentimes, these are the people we fall in love with. 

We fall in love with their coffee-stains for eyes, the sound of their laugh, the way they look when they’re trying to figure something out. We fall in love with the idea of what we could be to them, the future we’re so positive they’re going to play a big part in. We fall in love with them in the little moments just before the sun sneaks through the blinds first thing in the morning, when they’re laying next to you and everything just feels slow. When everything feels okay.

But sometimes, these Big Loves, don’t last. In fact, I’d say a lot of the time they don’t. Because flames of that magnitude tend to burn themselves out. It all becomes too much, too there, too intense. And there isn’t a single moment when these Big Loves are snuffed out. It sort of just happens gradually.

We fall in love in the little moments, and we fall out of love in the same way.

And it will knock the fucking wind out of you once the final blow is delivered. 

And when this happens, when love leaves, I need you to remember one thing:

You were someone before them.

Yes, you were. Don’t you remember?

You laughed before that corner booth you shared at midnight that one Saturday night. You mattered before they told you how much you meant to them. You had value before they turned to you for the first time for support. You loved before them. You were a friend before them. You were a son or daughter before them. You were inspired before them. You breathed before them. You were yourself long before you learned their name or how they take their coffee or their favorite stores or the song that makes their eyes light up like the Fourth of July.

And most importantly, you are still someone after them. 

This isn’t it for you. The defining moments and people and places don’t always have to last to make a lasting impression. Sometimes, their brevity makes them matter more.

So please know that it’s okay you loved so deeply for it to turn to ashes. That doesn’t make it less real.

So as you move forward and heal and let them go, remember what they taught you, but also remember who you were before them. They do not define you.

You do. 

You were someone before them. Never forget that.