It wasn’t until much later that I realized I can’t love you anymore. The memories still bring smiles, laughs, and tears. Retelling stories still makes the butterflies flit about my stomach. Visiting our old places sometimes makes me expect you to show up. But you don’t.
This isn’t me blaming you, for anything. This isn’t me begging for you to come back, or for me to stop forcing the distance to grow bigger. This is me telling you that I can’t love you anymore because of what I did.
At the beginning of the end, I told myself it would be easy to return to “normal.” Friends and family asked why I stopped trying, how I could quit reaching out. I always answered the same thing: what’s supposed to happen will happen. Although nobody let on, I doubt anybody saw through that lie.
Instead, they all knew the truth. The truth is I never wanted to leave; I never wanted days to turn into weeks into months into immeasurable time. I didn’t want to return to change. Time changes a person, and I knew it would change us both. With that, I knew the dynamic of “us” would change, too. So, like I do with all things difficult, I left.
I abandoned my head and heart, and I dove into a new persona. I started spending time with things and people I never liked, and I started participating in activities I swore I’d never join. I made myself change in an effort to better understand you—the you I would soon enough see again.
Again came too fast.
Still in the process of life changes, I faced you, and I thought, “He doesn’t even know me anymore.” It’s true. Too much time passed, too many changes occurred, and too many people walked through my life without you knowing their names. You don’t know me anymore. Then I told myself the truth.
It does not matter. Why would it matter that I’ve changed? That wasn’t my fear; that wasn’t ever my problem. No, I feared facing the problem of your changes. Now I sit here, wondering what they are. I wonder how many people stole pieces of your time while I pretended neither of us had any. I wonder how many changes you consciously made, and I wonder how many are for the better. I wonder if you think about how much time has passed.
I don’t know though. I probably won’t. Damn, I wish I did. But how could I ask for that? I feared coming back to a changed you, but instead I came back to see you as the same. You are still the person I want to talk to at the end of the day, before an important meeting, or after a tough class. You are still who I want to hug when tears well up, and you are still who I want to exclaim exciting news to first. But you’re not that person now.
Now, you’re the person I ignore on purpose. The person I pass with sass so I at least look confident in the steps I’m taking. The person I wish I could change everything for again. And I’m sorry, but I have to be honest now. No, I don’t love you anymore. And that’s hard because I no longer love myself when I think of who we were and who we can no longer be.
