I’m Taking Baby Steps To Leave You Behind

I blocked you on Monday. I’m not sure that you noticed immediately, and I spent the whole day wondering when you would. Would you feel relieved? A weight off your chest? Or did you frantically think of me and how to get me back? It’s been four days now.

Do you wonder why I did it? I’ll tell you: because it was toxic to not be together but still talk and reminisce of something we no longer have.

Leading up to this, you told me you’ve been doing well without me. You’ve achieved a lot, which made me so proud of you. I can’t sense if you did all these amazing things since we split to rub it in my face or because you’re moving on. Or could it be both?

I told you what I’ve been doing, some of my achievements and struggles. You seemed happy with how I’d been living life since we last spoke.

Then those words came: Did you miss me? I love you. I wasn’t ready to hear it. It destroyed me, in all honesty. All that repairing I’ve been doing, all that time spent fighting against my mind and those thoughts eating away at my confidence. I’ve been trying to move on and then this… this has made me relapse.

You came by and dropped off a present for my birthday. Seeing you get back in your car and drive off, I still remember. You were shirtless, sunglasses on your head, your hair tied back, curly and unwashed.

You used to make me wash that hair. In the shower, you’d crouch down on your knees and kiss my belly while I ran my fingers through your hair—shampooed twice, conditioned and rinsed off. Out we went to the bedroom for cuddles.

That’s enough.

I’m taking baby steps again now. The words you’ve said and haven’t said. They linger in my mind. But then Phoebe will come up and ask me to help her with something and I stop. Or someone will have messaged me and I forget momentarily.

But when it’s quiet, when there is deafening silence, when it’s dark outside and I turn your lamp on. You come back. When I cut up food with the kitchen knife set from your sister, you come back. When I turn on Phoebe’s night light and see your dream catcher hanging there, you come back.

There’s some things here you never took back, and I tried to give them to you, but you refused. I’ll pack them up and put them in a box soon. Baby steps, remember?

I don’t know if we’ll meet again, or if we’ll speak again, but I do know that even though I left, I did not leave you behind.