Women and the city

Sometimes, the hardest part of letting go is accepting that love was never the problem.

It’s autumn again.

Usually, that means nostalgia, questionable decisions you’ll overthink for the next six months and, if you’re anything like me, memories you thought you’d already buried somewhere deep enough.

I think that’s the beauty of this season.

Autumn has a way of making you look back. Not necessarily because you want to, but because something about the cold air, the shorter days and the quiet evenings makes you remember the people you once loved, the versions of yourself you left behind, and everything you had to lose to become who you are now.

For me, autumn always brings me back to him.

The love of my life.

At least, that’s what I called him for a very long time.

He wasn’t perfect. Maybe he was only perfect in my eyes. He wasn’t always present, and he wasn’t brave enough to fight for us when it mattered most.

I know he loved me. Maybe not in the way I needed, maybe not in the way I would have loved him, but he did. I don’t blame him for the things he couldn’t give me. We were two people trying to love each other with the tools we had at the time, and sometimes love simply isn’t enough.

But he was mine.

For four years, at least.

We met inside my apartment.

We were neighbours. We still are.

I had just moved in when he walked inside to ask me something about the internet. For the next two years, we were nothing more than neighbours who said “hi” whenever we crossed paths, sometimes stayed for a cigarette, talked for a few minutes and then went our separate ways.

Nothing crazy.

Until May 2020.

The pandemic had already turned everyone’s lives upside down, and somewhere between the chaos of the world and the quiet of our little neighbourhood, we became friends.

I started going over to his apartment to tell him stories and drink wine.

One glass became two.

Two became entire nights.

And eventually, we decided to give us a chance.

What came next?

Five months of happiness, cooking pasta at midnight, running on the apartment building’s hallways, a pregnancy we lost, and a lot of home.

That was only the beginning.

There are many things I could tell you about what went wrong. Things he did, things he didn’t do, the ways he broke my heart repeatedly, the moments when I wondered how someone who loved me could also hurt me so much.

But that’s not the story I want to tell.

Not this time.

Because this isn’t about everything he did wrong.

It’s about everything he taught me.

He taught me patience.

Gentleness.

Understanding.

Which, considering my personality, was nothing short of a miracle.

He taught me that love requires patience. That sometimes you have to listen instead of react. That people don’t always love the way you do, and that understanding someone doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with them.

And, for a while, I thought loving someone meant becoming whatever they needed you to be.

Learning how to love them “the right way.”

I did that.

I learned.

I adapted.

I tried.

And, obviously, it wasn’t enough.

Because if it had been, we would still be together.

Instead, we’ve been apart for more than two years.

For a very long time, I thought I would never love anyone the way I loved him.

I still believe that, in a way.

Not because he was necessarily the only person I could ever love, but because that version of me only existed once.

The girl who loved him was different.

She loved without knowing how much love could cost.

She believed that if you tried hard enough, understood enough, forgave enough and stayed long enough, things would eventually work out.

They didn’t.

And for a while, everyone who came after him had an impossible job.

They had to compete with a memory.

I kept comparing.

The way they spoke.

The way they loved.

The way they looked at me.

The way I felt around them.

And every time, something was missing.

Because I wasn’t really looking at them.

I was looking for him.

We kept talking over the years.

Not because we were secretly meant to be together, but because there was never a clean ending.

There was no cheating that suddenly made everything obvious.

There was no single moment when one of us stopped loving the other.

The reason we ended was bigger than the two of us.

And maybe that’s what made it so difficult to let go.

How do you move on from something when you don’t hate the person?

How do you close a door when, somewhere inside you, you still believe it could have been different?

For more than two years, I held on to the moments that made me happy.

The memories.

The version of us that existed before everything became complicated.

And then, one day, something changed.

I finally had the strength to let go.

Not to forget him.

Not to erase what we had.

Not even to promise myself that I would love someone else.

I simply stopped confusing the memories with the reality.

Because the moments I was holding on to weren’t enough anymore.

They were beautiful.

They were real.

They mattered.

But they were over.

And sometimes that’s the hardest truth to accept about love.

Something can be real and still not be meant to last.

I promised myself that I would remember our relationship as a lesson.

As the relationship that changed me.

The one that taught me how to be softer without becoming weaker. How to love without completely losing myself. And, eventually, how to let go without turning everything we had into something ugly.

There are parts of this story I will never tell.

Not because they didn’t happen.

Not because I’m ashamed of them.

But because some painful things belong to the people who lived them.

Some stories are yours to tell.

Others are yours to carry.

And maybe that’s okay.

So, if you’re reading this while holding on to someone who is no longer holding on to you, I want you to know something.

It doesn’t matter how much you loved them.

It doesn’t matter how badly it hurts.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been convinced that this was the one person you would never get over.

The sun will shine again.

Maybe next month.

Maybe next year.

Maybe ten years from now.

But one day, you’ll wake up and realize that you’re no longer waiting for the past to become your future.

And you’ll understand that letting go wasn’t giving up.

It was choosing yourself.

I know this because I picked myself up.

Broken.

Hurt.

Still carrying pieces of a life I thought would be mine.

And somehow, I’m still standing.

Maybe that’s what love leaves behind when it ends.

Not an empty space.

A different version of you.

And sometimes, that version finally knows when to walk away.

Until next time 🤍