And I still wonder what things make you think of me.

Is it that hill where we first kissed?

Or when strangers hold hands in public?

Maybe it’s the simple crossing of a road, or that bar when I first sat across from you. Maybe it’s the sweet scent of a perfume or a song that plays on your playlist. Maybe it’s the rain in February or the hat that sits on your dresser.

I still wonder when I cross your mind, is it right before you drift off to sleep, or the first thing when you wake up. Maybe you reach your arm across the bed in the middle of the night, searching for mine, to find it empty. Maybe it’s at 3 a.m. when you haven’t even gone to sleep, and you wake up, and you’re looking at your phone waiting for a reply.

All I’d hoped for was a simple love. Someone who would love me just as wildly as I loved them. Someone who would make me want to cross oceans or be on a 20-hour flight. Someone who would be the protector I always wanted, someone to publicly declare that their heart was taken.

All I hoped for was that the words you spoke from your heart were not just for then, but forever. All I hoped for was to recklessly pursue a person who would equally pursue me.

But time wasn’t on our side. Meeting the right person at the wrong time is still the wrong person. I write all this knowing that there is hope, but it doesn’t remove the questions or the feelings that once were a raging storm and a burning forest fire. It doesn’t remove the frustration I once felt or the sadness that swept over me for so long. It doesn’t ever take away from the hundreds of texts and hours of phone calls, and it doesn’t just take one day, a week, a month, or even a year to move on from something so real.

My heart, although it’s been broken, has been sewn and stitched together by tiny, little moments that don’t involve you. There’ve been many months between texts and FaceTimes. There’ve been experiences that I haven’t shared with you and milestones that I’ve moved through without having you there.

And sometimes that makes me sad, but it also makes me realise how you can still love someone but move forward. It makes me remember that you take all the memories and love and you bottle up all the good parts and you realise that you’re alive and well and can carry those things with you.

I’ve learnt that love sometimes isn’t enough to make a relationship work. It’s knowing that you can go through the fire and be dressed in armour that’s fireproof; it’s walking through the tough seasons and silently saying, I’ve got you. It’s the moments of pressure when you feel tested and everything is telling you that it’s easier to walk than it is to stay. It’s a choice. And to wake up and choose that every day. That’s what will endure for the long game.

So, I’ll still wonder all of those things.

It reminds me of where I’ve been and where I’m going. It’s a reminder to never stop being reckless and to wholeheartedly wear your heart on your sleeve. To recognise the goodness in others.

To want for the people you once loved to be with the right person at the right time.

~