I lost ‘that one person’. It’s a post I wrote that I am unable to read back. We struggled with the distance but we struggled more with other things. They don’t matter now.
I broke up with her and I broke her heart. It must change something permanently. No matter what, she will never be able to see me the same way as before. If there were a chance of being friends there will still always be that reminder, a permanent scar.
I did not mean to break her heart when I did. From an outsider’s perspective, it was clear and I now realise that in that moment I did, but that is not what went through my head then. I don’t regret the breakup or the decisions I made after because I know that I couldn’t do anything else at the time. In hindsight though, I wish I could have done it differently.
I know it is likely not to matter in a while but I’m feeling all kinds of feelings right now. Guilt and regret are currently fighting for the higher ground. I’ve started seeing her everywhere around me. Memories appear like pictures in my head. They change into moving images if I let them and not long after I can feel her as if she were still there with me, I can smell her scent as if we were holding each other right now.
It makes me think of all the things that went wrong; the entire road that it took to get here. I try not to think about it because I know I couldn’t have done anything differently in the situation as it was. So instead I drift back to the moments that I thought I made her happy, and they made me happy too. I wanted to give her the world but I couldn’t near the end. I loved her and it still wasn’t enough.
I don’t want an explanation. I know that love on its own isn’t enough. I know how all of this works but my feelings haven’t caught up yet.
‘Why is the measure of love loss?’ Jeanette Winterson wrote as an opening sentence in Written on the Body.
I don’t believe this statement to be true but it feels true at the moment. I made the difficult decision. It was good for me and I intended it to be good for her too and yet, it feels like I lost. I don’t want to erase our good memories but they remind me of what I did. I’m the one who broke us apart and the reason why we’ll never have that again. Maybe that means she’ll never acknowledge my existence anymore. In reality, the breakup happened because ‘that’ must have been lost for longer but it never feels like that afterwards. Now all that’s left to do is pick up my life and move on.
I feel happier than I have in a while and more confident in everything I do. I know I made the right decision but I will struggle with my feelings for a while. I’ll wonder about ‘what if’ but what matters is the now. Time heals and I’ll hold on to that.
