I Love the Love I Had for Him

Sitting as a group of 5 in a quiet, dimly lit hole-in-the-wall bar, having just enjoyed food and drinks at the end of the night… Only when my friend looked at me deeply and said, "Are you still in love with him?" did it hit me, 'Oh, I really did just vent, and they all really did listen.' declines next shot

After a moment of thinking, I couldn't come up with a clear answer. The table answered for me, per my delay, "Yes."

I knew in that moment the answer wasn't a hard no… but it wasn't a yes either… it was a feeling I've never felt before when reflecting over the end of a romantic connection.

It took me some months to realize it, but to go back to that dinner table and answer the question again, ready this time, I'd say, "No, I am not still in love with him. But I will forever love the love I had for him."

And to explain what that means, because I know it sounds wacky yet poetic but still outlandish enough to go misunderstood… It simply means I love the love I had for him. I don't miss him or the relationship per se, not that it was bad. It truly wasn't—it was eye-opening and character-building.

I love the version of myself I met while meeting him. I've never been that person before. It felt nice to adore and be adored, to be playful and vulnerable, to be seen and understood, to be learned and to learn, to explore and have someone join you in the unknown, to just… be in love.

But, some things just come to an end. Ever since I was a little kid, my Uncle emphasized that people are in your life for a reason, season, or lifetime, and time will tell all.

You know it's only when you are reflecting that it hits you, the sorta mind-fuck, when you realize the you of today, I'm talking down to your brain chemistry, is entirely different from the version of yourself from before you knew your then person.

Think about the people you interacted with, the activities you participated in, the outings you enjoyed, and the routines you established. Every time you date someone, your lives become equally embedded in one another's, creating a shared existence that transforms you both.

Looking back, my form of expression may not have been reciprocated, not in all the ways I would have liked, but I enjoyed just being my absolute self above all. I truly rode it out till the end. Sometimes, you know in advance that it's not going to last, but you still indulge in the pleasures anyway. As long as you know what you're getting into when you delay the hurt…

Sometimes you don't miss the person per se… You may still love them, wish them well, hope they're living great days and their family is good too; but, above all, you don't miss them that much to be involved in each other's every day anymore. Just not that much.

You get to a point where you just accept it for what it was, a chapter in your story, a building block, an era, a saga—whatever you categorize it.

You take the lessons learned, the experiences made, the memories cherished, and you pour it all back into you. Your fuel for your character's narrative arc.

You just love the love you had for him. You love the version of yourself that you allowed to be so utterly and embarrassingly in love. You just love that you lived that timeline.

You just love that you allowed yourself to express to what you may have thought was your highest extent of expression but it was only a demo to show you just how full you are. To show you that there's so much more of where that came from. Perhaps you learned that all that you can express is just meant for someone else.

Sometimes, instead of punching air, missing meals, and losing sleep, simply love the love you had for him. Because sometimes, there's just no one to blame, and that's honestly the worst type of breakup because you're forever gonna wonder "why?" Your story is always gonna feel sort of… incomplete.

I'm here to tell you to press pause on the hypotheticals and daydreams of what could be; it's done.

Just love the love you had for him.