Saudade

​I wish healing came with subtitles.

I wish it paused the scene and whispered,

“This is fear talking.”

or

“This is wisdom.”

Instead, it lets them sound almost identical.

I know people think endings happen because love disappears.

Sometimes that’s true.

Mine didn’t.

I still loved while I was afraid.

I still loved while I was exhausted.

I still loved while wondering whether I was already failing someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

I have spent so many years watching homes fall apart that somewhere along the way I started believing love always comes with an expiration date.

Maybe that belief protected me once.

Maybe this time it failed me.

I don’t know.

I know I feared the fighting.

I know I hated feeling like we kept ending up in the same painful conversations.

I know I hated feeling misunderstood.

But I also know I never stopped wanting us. I love him more than anybody I ever have before.

Those things can both be true.

I think what scares me the most isn’t conflict.

It’s history.

It’s remembering every relationship that slowly became something they wanted to run away from.

It’s wondering if depression will always convince the people I love that I’m too heavy to carry.

It’s wondering if one day someone will wake up and realize they deserve someone easier than me.

So when conflict happened…

I didn’t just feel the conflict.

I felt every ending before it.

Every goodbye before it had even arrived.

I don’t know if I made the right decision. It doesn’t feel like it at all.

I only know I made it while terrified.

Terrified of hurting someone.

Terrified of repeating my past.

Terrified of building another home that became another place where everyone slowly stopped feeling safe because of me.

Maybe my fear was trying to protect him from me.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that love was never missing.

If anything…

That was the hardest part.

I cut out my own heart. I put out the sun. And I hate myself. What have I done?