Just Know That When I Say Goodbye, I’m Trying To Say I Still Love You

I don’t mean to sound resentful because I’m not. I don’t mean to sound like you wasted my time. Because you didn’t. I don’t mean to say goodbye, but I have to.

What you gave me is something that most people never get to have. What you taught me after all these years is something that I won’t ever be able to come up with it or make copies of.

You were not a story in a book. You were not a chapter or a page pulled out. You were the start.

And I hope that after all this time, you know at least that much. 

You know that you grew with me. That we grew up holding hands and laughing and loving and unfolding without reason or doubt. That I never thought about a future with anyone until I met you. That I never thought about my wedding day, about having children, about building a life and a home with someone until my eyes met yours.

Because you were home. 

And I won’t lie because I never can with you. No matter how much easier it would be.

I still think about you some nights.

Most nights.

I still want you to believe in me. I still want you to come running back even though I ran in the other direction when things got difficult and messy. When the chaos unfolded around me. I know now what I should have known then.

That I should have stayed. 

I should have stayed and fought like hell for you. But I didn’t. And I can admit when I’m wrong. You taught me that best.

That was always the thing with you. Even though your life is a series of mistakes, of complicated situations. Of saying too much and doing too little.

You still have the best heart. One that only wants to give and to never take too much too fast.

The kind that beats heavy and low, so loud that no one can really hear it. Not all the way. I think that I memorized it at one point, a long time ago. But then I had to learn life without you.

It was really, really hard. 

And it still is. 

Because when I’m missing you the most, when I know that my words fall short, that’s when I wish that I could say everything to you at loud. But I never could.

Until I understood that I have to say goodbye. 

I have to say goodbye without raising my hand in a wave. I have to tell you I’ll always love you, but can’t wait for you to figure out how to love me back. I have to say goodbye so that you can fall in love with someone else and stay, rather than giving up the fight.

Rather than giving you pieces of my heart slowly, I want you to know that I am giving it you now. Fully and completely. But I am also letting you go.

I could have loved you my whole life if you would have just figured it out sooner. And just know that I don’t want to unlove you. But it’s breaking my heart to have only memories of you. Tiny little shadows of who we could have been or who we used to be.

I know now that even though I may appear weaker without you, I’m not. And if there’s anything I have left to say, this is it.

I will never be anything but grateful that I got to know you at all. I will never be anything but humbled by what we had, because most people search their whole lives to find what we found in each other.

Mostly, I will never be anything but hopeful. That one day, in the far away future, that maybe we can love one another again.

This is only half a love letter.

Because as much as I pray and hope and wish and dream that we will fall back into one another again, I know it might not happen like that. And I know that maybe I’ll only keep loving you and I’ll have nothing else.

Just know that when I say goodbye, what I’m really trying to say is that I still love you.