You still contact me every few months to see if I'm over you or not. It's crazy the way exes sense when you're thinking of them or when you're moving on.

You got away, 1,565.1 miles away (23-hours and 29-minutes away by car).

When we first met I was 16-years-old, and the world seemed so big. Still, at times I'm paralyzed thinking about how big and vast the universe is. But, I no longer thank the universe for the first time we met, the second time we met, the third time we met and all three breakups between them. Our story was no longer a story about our perseverance and sacrifices. It became a story of loss: loss of trust and sanity and the only thing that held us together was empty "I love you's" and promises about the future.

For the last few years, I have been in a swirl of emotions thinking of the great people I meet as stops on a train and you as the destination. That's a terrible way to live, isn't it? To believe that your life is just going by until the day when everything is worth it because you're finally with your person?

For me, you were that person for a while. You were the end goal and your dreams were worth all the time apart in the world, and I didn't realize that I never chose myself until one day I did. I realized that a year ago when I would wait for you to ask how things were going for me, while I was on the other side of the country also trying to make something of myself but stifled under your shadow.

You didn't ask and I stopped begging for you to care enough to. You seem happy from 1,565.1 miles away. I am no longer stifled under your shadow, waiting, or thinking about the fourth time we get back together. A year later and I'm thinking about the dreams and ambitions of mine that you never cared to ask about, watching them unfold in front of me every single day.

Maybe I was the one that got away.