“I miss him,” my mother said.

“I miss him, too,” was my reply, inhaling deeply, then exhaling as I replied, “But he doesn’t miss me.”

There it was. That moment when you accept a bittersweet fact, then find yourself up close and personal with a flood of feelings and wonder how you will prevent yourself from drowning, once again.

The questions hit you in succession, like hail beating down on the pavement, fast and furiously.

Why does this still hurt so bad? Will I ever recover? Have I truly lost my lust for love? Did it reawaken with him then die with our breakup? Are we broken up—or is this simply another break and one day soon, he will text or call, realizing that what we did share over the years was too good to walk away from?

This, of course, is me wanting to believe that he feels that way, even though I was the one to walk away.

And why did I ride off into the sunset? Because I faced that bittersweet fact that he never missed me. He did at one time. It wasn’t as if I was trying to change him or wanting what he wasn’t capable of giving—he gave it all to me, long ago. I was clear that it best not be a sales pitch, because that’s what won my heart for a few good years. And the reality is I have no way of knowing. There was, and never will be, closure because he stopped opening up and shut off to me. The more I fought for us, the further away he moved, my emotions and frustration getting the best of me and maybe, severing what could have been salvaged.

Yet there’s that acceptance—that bittersweet acceptance. It’s a reality that slaps me in the face, waking me up and results in reframing my thoughts. I allow myself to feel all the feels, hurting and hoping. Wallowing in what was, yet feeling deep within my soul that it can’t be over, it just can’t. He is the only person I can see myself sharing my life with. As dysfunctional as it became, I feel in my heart that we can get back what we had.

In that moment, I snap back to life, awakening from my dream, and acknowledge the fact that I know I can find my way back—but he doesn’t want to. I left because the promise to get back to where we were died over and over again. The more effort I put in, the less he tried. It grew worse, more distant, increasingly bitter and resentful. I tried tirelessly to support him, to be there through his dark times, but my love wasn’t enough—because I wasn’t enough for him.

And that’s why I left. My self-respect won, and I accepted the fact that I would live with that pain. I’d like to say he grew bitter, too. He had his reasons, but without honesty, no one wins. Maybe there was someone else—and that would make sense. Most who turn off from their partner are partnering with another. Why not come clean? When that’s the case—a woman knows. We can sense and feel it in every way. I’d like to have been wrong, but more and more reflection doubts that I was.

You can’t get blood from a stone. If someone isn’t leveling with you about where they are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, you’re left out in the cold, in the dark alone. Your passion and emotional outbursts serve to damage the relationship rather than save it.

And one thing I can attest to is being alone in solitude is heaven over feeling alone when you’re in a relationship—that’s hell.

So yes. I miss him terribly. But I’ve accepted the fact that he doesn’t miss me, yet I wish him a life of love, peace, and happiness—may he find that.

I will always love him—but I had to love myself more. I’m not sure that I’m capable of moving on. I may just live with him forever in my heart as I move through life. Time will tell, and that may be perfectly acceptable right now.

Feel your feels. But accept what is, no matter how bittersweet.

~

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