The dinners we never shared. The cities we never wandered. The laughter that never echoed across a table.
I miss introducing you to the people I love. I miss meeting the people you love.
I miss the ordinary things.
A bottle of wine near the water. A conversation that stretches long after midnight. The comfort of no longer needing to imagine.
I miss knowing.
What your laugh sounded like in a room. Whether you talked with your hands. Whether we would have fallen into conversation as easily in person as we did through words on a screen.
I think we would have.
But I’ll never know.
That’s the hardest part.
Not that the story ended.
That part of it never began.
Somewhere in another version of the world, there is a friendship that stepped out of imagination and into daylight.
Two people who stopped wondering. Two people who finally met. Two people who discovered whether reality could be as beautiful as possibility.
I don’t live in that world.
I live in this one.
The one where I loved what was. The one where I wanted more than it could offer. The one where walking away was the right choice.
And still, I am grateful.
Grateful for the conversations. Grateful for the laughter. Grateful for being understood so completely by another human being.
Grateful for the questions, the stories, the years, and the way ordinary moments somehow became extraordinary when shared.
Not every story is meant to become a lifetime. Some arrive, change us, and leave us better (and worse) than they found us.
This was one of those stories.
So yes, I am sad.
I am sad for the friendship that never got the chance to grow. I am sad for the possibilities that never became memories.
But I am grateful, too. Grateful that for a little while, I knew what it felt like to be cared for deeply.
There are some people who leave behind more than memories. They leave behind possibilities.
And sometimes the most loving thing we can do is carry those possibilities with gratitude instead of waiting for them to become real.
@JustNik Thank you! Working through the grief has helped me write again. I wish I wasn't grieving, but I'm glad I have an outlet to express the emotions. I appreciate your kind words.
@bobhall5868 Dreams are important in life. Definitely. However, I pursue mine, otherwise, they're just unfulfilled yearnings. I much prefer reality and making my dreams come true when possible.
There’s a famous line from The Compleat Angler that says “No man can lose what he never had.” Which raises a lot of interesting philosophical questions about what we have and what we don’t.
@Harmonium1923 I never had him, not really. I don't think you can really "have" a person. You can, however, have a connection, a shared experience, deep feelings for each other. Those are real and can be lost and can be grieved.
@SensualRomantic Yes, time is really the only thing that softens wounds of the heart. I’m glad you survived. I remember the pain you were feeling back then.
@ChampagneOnIce We learn how to live with the pain. Most days it stays quiet in the background, and we carry on with our lives. Then a song comes on, or you read something that reminds you of them, and suddenly it all comes back to the surface like it never really left.
