This Is Why I Can’t Let Go Of You

A few months ago I promised myself I wouldn’t write about you ever again. I decided that it wasn’t fair to hold on to you, even if it was just in the words I write.

But I can’t seem to let go, my mind won’t allow it… Or maybe it’s my heart.

Either way, you’re always there in some form or another, even if it’s just because it’s Friday night and I’m eating pizza and my mind suddenly drifts to you, beside me, picking the pepperoni off the plate before we’d even sat down.

How do I make it stop? This endless reel of images of the life we shared? Do you struggle? Are there ghosts of me sitting at the table, drinking tea as you cook our favourite meal? Do you hear Ed Sheeran playing in the bathroom? Is my perfume still burnt in to the duvets?

Some days I just want to text you and ask you if you’ve thought about me today. I want to laugh about that time you took me out in your car and we spent the entire evening arguing. Well me shouting at you, and you pressing your lips together, trying to be patient with me.

You were always so patient.

I want to just drown in our memories, I want the current to take me away, I don’t want to feel guilty for thinking about you every day. But I do.

I feel as if I’m betraying the man I’m with now, the man who makes my heart race and my stomach go wild with butterflies. The man who stole my heart before I’d fully let you go.

How can I still think of you when I wanted him? When I chose him? When I’m so incredibly happy, euphoric even, with him. Is this life’s cruel way of punishing me for what I did to you?

We were meant to be forever, you and me.

We were meant to be the fairytale, the “wow, are they still together?!” Couple. We were meant to replace that horrible green stair carpet and finally paint our bedroom walls. You were meant to wipe the sweat ridden hair from my face and kiss my forehead as we held our newborn baby. I saw it all, I wanted it all. I really did. And now I just have these images hanging in my mind with nowhere to go.

Some days I want to light a match to them. To finally be free of you, of that life.

But I don’t think I ever will be.

You see, I don’t think we can ever really let go of those we’ve loved. They become a part of us, even if it’s just in the way we like our coffee now. Or how we love zombie movies when we never would have dreamt of watching them before.

A tiny part of us becomes them, they live on in us. And all it takes is the mention of a brand or a show or the smell of their cologne and we’re catapulted back in time.

So I’m sorry for breaking yet another promise to you, I’m sorry that I’m not as strong as I thought I was. I’m sorry you’re trapped here, in my mind.

But a small part of me hopes I’m trapped too, in yours.