I still think about you

Though a huge part of our largely-silent, post-dating acquaintanceship is based on the idea that neither of us have any interest in the other — that whatever happened between us is something entirely left in the past to wither and rot — I still think of you.

And saying that I miss you wouldn’t quite be the right term, either, though I know that admitting you still think of someone you used to love immediately conjures up images of someone sitting alone in their room, listening to sad songs, and crying. I’m not crying. I am no longer tricking myself into thinking that we should have made it work (or that it was even a possibility), and the mourning period of your loss has passed. It’s more now a quiet sadness about the love that has disappeared from my life. We knew each other so well, and meant so much to each other, and now we don’t speak at all. It’s as though all of those moments we lived together have just evaporated behind us, and that seems such a shame.

I don’t want you back, it’s just that, when I hear from you, or see you, or hear through the grapevine of something that you’ve been up to, thoughts of you linger. I think about what you’re doing, who you’ve become without me, what parts of your personality have risen to the top or almost faded away now that I am no longer a daily influence on your life. I guess it’s kind of selfish to center so many of my questions about you around our relationship, but you have to understand that I only knew you in one context.

I know you still think about me? Your texts shows that. I also know, it’s selfish, it’s childish. Nothing screams “immaturity” like wanting to catch up with someone only to shortly thereafter find out exactly what percentage of their life has to do with you still, but I’m curious. As much as I genuinely find myself thinking of what your life must consist of, it would be comforting to think that you have the same moments of reflection about me. Tell me that something as strong as we felt, strong enough to turned my life upside down, sort of echoes through the rest of your life, occasionally tapping you on the shoulder to remind you of a past that we so clearly left behind. Tell me, because the world would seem a bit too cold if it didn’t.

Yes, I am still curious. I wonder what has happened to you since I last saw you, touched you, whispered something in your ear. I wish that getting coffee and catching up like old friends was something acceptable for the two of us to do, and not something that came with a million implications about how desperate the initiating party must be. But, in the interest of honesty, I do wonder. It would be nice to feel that all of that love wasn’t meant to just be destroyed by the window of ugliness we experienced towards the end. Also, guess I’d like to know that your life has gone as well as I had once hoped it might, and that what you have become is something that you can sit with at the end of the day and be proud of. And if love is something that you spend your day looking for, I hope you find it..