Missing Him Does Not Rewrite the Ending
Missing someone is not new evidence that you should go back. Sometimes it is simply proof that there were beautiful things inside something that still had to end.
Someone wrote to me this week and said, “I know why I left. So why do I only remember the good parts now?”
Because memory is a traitor sometimes.
It keeps the laugh.
The inside jokes.
The way he reached for your hand without thinking.
The song that became yours.
The restaurant where the waiter knew your order.
The version of him who knew exactly how you took your coffee and exactly what kind of silence meant you were upset.
Memory is very good at keeping the evidence for love.
It is less interested in keeping the evidence for why you had to leave.
That part takes work.
I know because I do it too.
There are days I remember one particular person so clearly that I could almost convince myself the ending was some kind of misunderstanding.
That maybe I was too hurt.
Too stubborn.
Too quick to walk away.
Then I make myself remember the whole story.
Not just the six years that were beautiful.
The part that broke me too.
The waiting.
The uncertainty.
The feeling of loving someone who kept asking me to understand why I could not come first.
The moment I realized I had started accepting less because I loved him enough to make excuses for it.
That matters.
The good memories do not become lies just because the relationship ended badly.
You are allowed to treasure them.
You are allowed to miss who you were together.
You are allowed to laugh when an old photo shows up instead of immediately throwing your phone across the room.
None of that means leaving was a mistake.
Sometimes we confuse missing someone with receiving new information.
It isn’t.
Missing him does not mean he changed.
Missing him does not mean the thing that hurt you suddenly became acceptable.
Missing him does not mean you owe the past another chance.
It only means there was something worth grieving.
And maybe that is the hardest part.
Some relationships do not end because there was no love.
They end because love was not enough to make the relationship safe, equal, or sustainable.
You can miss the person and still trust the woman who finally walked away.
Nostalgia remembers what you loved. Healing remembers why love alone was not enough. You need both memories to tell the truth.
Until next Tuesday.
— S.
