This Is How It Feels To Miss You

The interlude, the dreaded in-between – the time between losing you and crashing into another soul that maybe, just maybe, makes me believe in love once again. I’ve been learning what my life is like without you every day for five years. It’s been a grueling process, to say the least. When I play with my niece, see her perfect smile and hear her beautiful giggles, I have flashbacks of every conversation and dream we had of bringing our own babies into the world. I am brought right back to the moment when you put your hand on my belly and said, “I cannot wait till you’re carrying one of my children in there.” My breath gets caught in my throat, I struggle to exhale, I feel my world spinning – this is what missing you is like.

Missing you is not being able to listen to ‘our song’ five years on. Missing you is having a playlist on my phone that holds many of the songs we had on our ‘B+K romance’ playlist, songs I can never bring myself to listen to. Missing you means not knowing whether I will ever feel my heart swell again the way it did at the sight of you, the sound of your voice. Missing you is knowing you named your firstborn son after a name we had picked out years ago. It shatters my heart anew, every time my mind is invaded by the truth that I wasn’t the one to have your children. Missing you is remembering every moment spent planning our future together, picking out the names of the babies we’d have, dreaming of living in the country on a little piece of land with our dogs and cows and the sound of little feet running around. Missing you is seeing the pain and betrayal on the faces of the ones I love the most; my family loved you like one of their own, you were essentially adopted into our bloodline. And then you turned your back and you betrayed every one of them. The sadness and anger I feel when I think of the destruction you caused, the trust you shattered – well, it’s almost too much for me to bear.

Some people may think that it’s taking me too long to put your memory to rest. And if I’m being honest, I’ve questioned myself about it so many times that I’ve lost count entirely. Isn’t it funny what we keep tucked inside the softest, most sacred place in our hearts? The moments and memories, the bits and pieces, things best forgotten but impossible to erase. I am learning so much while I gently tend to my wounds, the gaping holes you left me with. And one of the most important truths is that no one has the right to tell me how to heal, when to heal, and how to quit loving someone. Because at the end of the day, don’t we all have that one soul we are continuously, incessantly, permanently recovering from? Don’t we all have one human that came barrelling into our lives, engraved themselves on our hearts, and then made our world stop the day they chose to leave?

No one gets to tell you how to heal, and no one gets to do the work for you. Let it all come organically — every feeling, emotion, and painful memory. Then allow them to leave as they choose, but never force the wound to close – that never works. For a wound prematurely stitched up and then stretched too thin will surely break wide open and dismantle any healing that has taken place. Everything will hurt, until it doesn’t hurt anymore. And pain demands to be felt – it will always demand to be felt.