(for the love we waited for… and the silence that followed)
Hey,
There’s no anger in this. Not even confusion anymore. Just a still, low burning ache…the one that hums beneath the ribs when it’s too quiet to ignore. I think what hurts most is knowing I finally found the words, but now there’s no space to offer them. Not really.
We used to wait for each other. Even when we were barely hanging on. You waited for me on that first date, even when I was late. March 23rd, 2010 @ 5:57pm. I stepped off the bus, there you were. Waiting…
And I waited for you, through losses, through silence, through every kind of pause love can take. I waited for you in your darkest nights.
Held space like it was a breath. I thought… maybe foolishly, you’d wait for me in mine.
If we had just waited one more time… One more storm. One more breath. We would’ve made it.
But you don’t have to wait anymore.
I did what I always said I would, I found myself. I became the version of me you always believed was in there, somewhere.
And now, I can finally hold you the way you always deserved.
But I was late.
This time, the waiting was too heavy.
I know you’re rewriting the story. I can feel it in the way my name doesn’t show up anymore,
except maybe as a footnote or a ghost haunting the background of an old scene.
Maybe that helps it all make sense. Maybe it makes it easier to breathe. Maybe you needed to believe none of it was real. I don’t blame you for that. But I lived it. Every page. Every break in the spine of our story.
Fourteen years is a long time to hold a dream.
We were so close to building the life we always talking about, the one we wished into the wind. So close we could almost touch it.
And I’m not asking for it back. I’m not asking for anything. This isn’t a plea. It’s just… the release of everything I never got to say.
Like how I still remember your laugh when we’d get loopy at 10pm. How you’d save spiders even when you were terrified.
And how the wind always seemed to shift when you danced in sunbeams. You were magic in ways the world didn’t always deserve.
And you were home. Even when I was lost inside myself. I know I became a ghost to you.
Not by choice, but because it made it easier for you to go. And maybe I was never supposed to follow. Maybe the end was always written in the margins of our story.
Still, I hope you remember that once… you were held, fully. You were chosen, over and over, and over… even when I couldn’t find my way to the surface. I chose you. I came back for you. But you… you were already gone. I was too late.
We always waited. Until you couldn’t. I’ll carry that truth quietly, like a pressed flower between pages. Not to reopen the story, but to honor it.
You may never see this. Or maybe you will, and it won’t matter. But it matters to me. Because love like that, whatever it becomes, deserves to be remembered.
Even if I’m just a guest appearance in your story now. Even if I’m just a name that echoes in places you don’t revisit.
I’ll keep walking, holding on to the memory of life we once wished upon. Not because I want to. But because I promised I would. I’ll wait… for the next life. Or the one after that. Or in space you feel lost, when it feels like your hearts being hugged while trying to catch its breath. That’ll be me. Like how I would lay next to you, take a breath, wrap my arms around you… and say, “It’ll be ok”, “no matter what, it would be ok.” I said it because I knew that as long as we had each other we would be OK.
So on those nights, after the kids and kittens have gone to sleep, but you’re feeling out of place or out of space. Lean into the silence, you’ll hear… “see, I told you it would be OK.”
You don’t have to wait for me anymore…
But know you were worth every second that I did.
This letter was written during a DBT exercise I did in 2024. It was a way to host the grief I was going through at the time. While it was a significant milestone in my life. I no longer wait for them. I dont wait for lost love. I now remain present and open for new love, where I will show up fully.
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