Unloving You Doesn’t Mean It Wasn’t Real

After The Hardest Lesson I Ever Learned Was Unloving You by Sade Andria Zabala

It’s funny how the smallest things remind me of you. I go to our coffee shop almost every day now. I have gotten close to being able to finish my own cup, but most days, I still can’t. Maybe it’s because the thought of the end terrifies me. Even though I can see it coming, I don’t want to believe that it’s real. I always knew you were leaving, but I never wanted to believe it.

I wanted to believe that what we had was real. I wanted to believe that I would be the one to make you believe in commitment. I just really wanted to believe you.

But even the things that we believe in the most can let us down. You let me down. What we had was just so different. You had me believing that this time would actually be different. I thought I had found someone who finally really saw me, but I understand now that all I found was another loose end that I will never be able to tie.

Every day brings a deluge of memories of what we once had. I’ve been sitting here, sinking, hoping to regain my grasp on the life I had before I met you. I’ve been working to forget the way you looked at me the night we first met. And I’ve been struggling to erase your touch from my body, my heart, and my soul. But no matter what I do, I just can’t seem to let go of you.

Maybe it’s because for the first time in a long time, you made me feel again. For the first time in a long time, I felt wanted. I felt seen. For the first time in a long time, I felt like it was finally enough to just be me.

Your touch was electric, but nowhere near as illuminating as your mind. I could have gotten lost in it for hours if you let me. But you would never let me. Any time I got too close to knowing it all, you would stop yourself. Maybe, I was just your free therapy session, and the bigger secrets came with a much larger price.

Even though I knew you were always leaving, there was always a part of me that wished for you to stay. But people like you are not meant to stay put for too long. You were here to teach me that I was still alive, despite what I had been through and what was to come next. You were here to teach me that love is not a linear line with a simple  start and a clear finish we all get to cross. Some of us make it to the end, while some of us have to take a new path to find the ending we were truly meant for.

I have been trying to unlove you, but I have finally realized that just because someone leaves you, doesn’t mean everything you once had has to leave you,too. You can still carry their love with you. You just have to understand that the love you once had is not the love they have to give now.

And that doesn’t make your love any less real.

A lot of times you don’t even feel real.

But then, I’ll take a sip of our favorite coffee, and I know.

You are real.

I am real.

And we never needed anyone else to prove that.