I’ve Learned I Love You, And I Can Live Without You

I really wish I could call you. That’s all I want to do. Even though you found another me, a better me, I just want to talk to you. I want to hear your voice. I want to know that the feelings we felt weren’t as easily replaceable as it seemed. Because you replaced me so seamlessly, so easily, that it almost feels like we weren’t ever even together.

So we can compare lives. We can compare where we’re at. We can look at everything that I have and everything you have. And if people were judging on who won, it would be you. You have someone who loves you while I have a one-bedroom apartment to myself. You have a family and roots while I have wanderlust and a gypsy lifestyle. You go to bed with the same person every night while I still wake up sometimes with different people.

Our friends forget that if there’s one name they shouldn’t mention, it’s yours. And they tell me things. Things about how you’re doing. If you’re happy. If the love that you found all those years ago is still as fulfilling as the day you left. And I see pictures from time to time of you with her and your new family and I wonder if you ever think about the girl you left behind.

But I’m no longer that girl.

I’ve grown up. I’ve seen things. I’ve learned the harsh realities of how feelings really can fuck you over. How sometimes being in love with someone doesn’t mean that they love you back. That even though you want to control your emotions and move on that love isn’t logical. It isn’t a puzzle you can just solve and that’s it. It’s over. And everything is fine.

Because if it was then maybe I’d be just as happy with someone new of my own. I’d have a family. I’d have roots. I wouldn’t have the itchy feeling in my feet every time something started to feel more and more permanent. If someone started to feel too permanent. It’s not that I don’t want those things; it’s just that I’ve felt how much it hurts when you lose them and watch the person you love have it with someone else.

But then I remember everything I’ve done. Everything I’ve seen. Everyone I’ve met.

I remember how happy you were not going anywhere and how much that drove me crazy. I remember that even though I loved you and even though I romanticized our past that my future has been completely and utterly paved by the shattered pieces of the heart that you broke. That heartbreak has led me to do things I wouldn’t have done if I was still with you.

It might sound crazy but I’m happy you’re happy. I’m happy that you met someone who gives you everything I couldn’t. Because she did give you everything I couldn’t. I was never meant to be your forever and neither were you mine. We were in each other’s lives temporarily to realize that the feelings we had with each other exist. But that we can find them with other people. That we can love fully and hard without fear of losing.

When I lost you I thought I lost everything. I thought that I was going to be one of those people who stopped trying. I thought that there was no way that my heart was going to heal. And even though it stings a bit when I hear your name. Or maybe I feel nostalgic for the great times. I know that we were meant to be on the separate paths we’re on now.

And I love you for everything you’ve done for me. You taught me what it was like to love and lose.

But mostly you taught me how to feel things I’ve would have never learned how to without you.