Even If I Knew How Things Were Going To End Between Us, I Would Still Choose You

I wish I wouldn’t have been so afraid to just talk to you.

Maybe if I would have told you that the short time I spent with you was worth more to me than all of the years I spent with him, you would still be here. Maybe if I would have set boundaries, I would not have lost the only romantic relationship that has ever really meant something to me. Maybe if I would have just let you go without the anger and the resentment, I would still have one of my closest friends. Maybe if I would have just been honest, things wouldn’t have gotten so messy.

Maybe I wouldn’t be writing the same words over and over and over again, just to try to find the reason why. Maybe if I would just accept that sometimes, we will never find our answer, I could finally move on. Maybe if I would have just told you sooner, I wouldn’t have to move on. Maybe everything would be different.

Or maybe it would all be exactly the same.

You still would have gotten on that plane. You still would have met that girl. And I still would have been me and not her, and there was never anything I could have ever done to change that. Maybe I just need to accept the fact that sometimes who and what we want changes.

Maybe the distance is just too much between the two of you or your dreams in life have become too different. Or maybe one day, you look into their eyes and you just know. You just know that those eyes have looked at someone else with the same love they used to see in you. You just know that there are secrets behind them that you will never know, and maybe it is better that way. Maybe it is better not to know why you were no longer enough. Or that you were never enough in the first place. Maybe I do not need to know if you ever think of me or if I am just another page in your story. Maybe I am just another moment in time that will one day be forgotten.

Maybe I never should have known the truth. Or maybe I should have just accepted the fact that the truth was always there between us. We both knew from the beginning that what we had would have to end. We had already gotten our second chance. I don’t know why I am still sitting here so hopeful for the third.

We both knew that what we had was different. We both decided that what we had was worth the pain of knowing it could never be permanent. We both took a chance, and we both got hurt. And still, I think that it was worth it.

Even if I knew how things were going to end between us, I would still choose you. I would still choose you knowing that in just a few short months, you would choose to leave my life forever. And that I would have to live with that choice forever. That is what you meant to me.

You taught me both the beauty and the pain of living in the moment. You showed me just how beautiful the world could be if you just opened up to it. You made me feel loved in a way that I had never experienced before. With you, I felt beautiful. With you, I did not have to question if you cared because I always knew that you did.

I will never forget the way we looked at each other underneath the stairs at the train station. I will never forget the way I felt as the train pulled away, and I just knew that things would never be the same again. I just knew that who we were in that moment was something we would never be able to get back. I knew that I was watching the beginning of the end. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

You were moving on with your life and chasing your career, while I stayed behind in the city that would never quite be your home. I knew that I would never be able to be your home.

I wanted so badly for things to end well this time. I had naively assumed that we would stay friends and that things between us would remain the same. If there is one thing that my time with you taught me, it was that things never remained the same.

From the day you crashed into my world to the day you so silently walked away, you showed me how much things can change in an instant. Sometimes these changes are everything you could have ever wanted in life, while other times, they are your worst nightmares come true. Life will never be all good or all bad. Changes will come into your life, whether or not you are ready or willing to receive them.

I will always be so glad that I took a chance on you. From you, I learned that sometimes the best things in life really do come when you least expect them, and that sometimes, the things we least expect are unfortunately the things that come true.

I don’t know what you are doing now, but I hope that you are happy. I hope you are fulfilled and doing all of the things that you have always wanted to do. I hope that you didn’t lose your passion for music and the arts. I hope you get to travel to all of the places you still want to see. And I hope that one day, someone loves you as deeply and as wholly as you deserve. (I know that this is what we both deserve.)

And even if our paths never cross again, know that you will always have a home here in Chicago.