I think the hardest part isn’t missing someone. People act like missing someone is just distance and time. It’s not. Sometimes the hardest part is missing someone you already decided you can’t choose.
You meet someone at the wrong point in life, or maybe not even the wrong point—just a point where your responsibilities already belong somewhere else. Family. Commitments. People depending on you.
And nobody talks about how strange it feels to carry love and restraint at the same time.
Because it’s not that I don’t care enough. It’s that caring isn’t the only thing life asks from people.
So you do the responsible thing. You stay where you said you’d stay. You keep showing up for people who rely on you.
But some nights you still wonder what would’ve happened if life had introduced you earlier, or later, or under different circumstances.
You don’t even want anything anymore. You just miss the possibility.
And maybe that’s what hurts most—not losing a person, but losing the version of yourself that existed when being with them still felt possible.