A million “maybes,” a thousand “almosts,” a hundred “next times,” ten “we’ll sees,” and one goodbye. Yeah, I became one of those people to fall “almost in love” and gosh, I think it might hurt more than the real deal. Disclaimer, I do not recommend it.
Sure, it had its positive qualities. There was no commitment, a lot of fun, a million memories, and a countless amount of that “almost love.” We had it all, or so it seemed for a while. Maybe within the first year we got too comfortable with our series of almosts. It was easy to not talk about what we were feeling and just stay in that grey area. Neither one of us are good at “the deep stuff.”
But here we are, years later and things have changed. We began to fight more than we laughed, and that is when I knew our relationship was heading down a rocky road. It hurt to think about losing “us.” For so long, it was easier to turn a blind eye and focus on our positive memories. Looking back, the closer we got, the more scared we became. We knew this was something good, but we both ran away from it. We made sly comments, used our sarcasm to our advantage, and talked about everything but the thing that kept the lump in the back of our throats for years. We tried to focus on new people, which pushed ourselves away from each other in the process.
If I could have looked into our future years ago, and seen the painful state we are in now, I would have had “the talk” time and time again. The positive qualities of our relationship were slowly but surely covered by the promises that never came true, and the wedge that grew between us. The mixture of hot and cold moments were growing and everyone around us could see it. We went from the couple everyone wanted to be, to the two people who argued to remind the other they still cared enough.
In the midst of everything, we both grew a lot in the past two years, both apart and together. I could not be any happier to have grown up next to that person, but I think that some people are meant to grow apart, and as much as it hurts to say, I think we are those people. We had a great run but now it is time for me to find someone who I can fully love, without all the complicated almosts and maybes.
I’ve come to realize that I deserve that. I let my heart lead me in our relationship for so long that it blinded me to the pain that was bound to happen. My love is so strong, I prayed for a long time that we would wind up together in the end. But now I have come to terms with praying for myself to find the love I deserve.
There is nothing to forgive. We had the time of our lives. I know in the back of my mind, I will still be praying for us for a long time. But, this is the first step of me beginning to learn that I deserve more than what we had. It is hard for me to say, but our series of “we’ll sees” has hit an end. I will pray for our friendship, that it remains strong and our friend group still thrives.
But that is where it needs to be left – as a friendship. It scares me to lose our possible future, but it kills me to continue being in this situation. I have to let go. This is the beginning of that.