Obsession is just a thing to play with

I have spent almost a year grieving.

Some days are easier than others.

I am not where I was when this first happened.

I am no longer devastated every day.

I am no longer spending every waking moment consumed by the loss.

I have healed.

Not completely, but significantly.

The fact that I still hurt does not erase the progress I have made.

The fact that I still cry does not mean I am back at the beginning.

I lost multiple important relationships at the same time.

I lost people I loved.

I lost physical closeness.

I lost daily routines.

I lost a sense of home.

I lost parts of my future that I thought were certain.

That is a lot for one person to carry.

Sometimes I still feel discarded.

Sometimes I still feel insignificant.

Sometimes I still feel as though I was thrown away.

When those feelings show up, I can remember that they are grief speaking.

They are not objective measurements of my worth.

One of the hardest parts of this loss is that I do not feel like the story reached a conclusion.

I listened when I was told how I had hurt people.

I accepted responsibility.

I apologized.

I tried to improve.

I changed.

I could see myself changing.

Then I made another serious mistake.

And everything ended.

What hurts now is not that I believe I deserved another chance.

What hurts is that I never got to find out what those changes might have meant.

I never got to learn whether the better version of me could have built something different.

That uncertainty is painful.

But uncertainty is not the same thing as failure.

I am allowed to recognize that I made mistakes.

I am also allowed to recognize that I was hurt.

Those things can both be true.

The relationships did not end because I was entirely good.

They also did not end because I was entirely bad.

Human relationships are rarely that simple.

I do not need to carry all of the responsibility forever.

I do not need to make myself the sole villain in order to prove that I have grown.

The dreams make sense.

In the dreams, I find them.

I see them.

I try to talk to them.

I try to reconnect.

But nothing changes.

The dream continues around me while they drift away.

I know I am not getting them back.

Even in the dream, I know that.

What I am experiencing is not hope.

It is grief.

The dreams are not asking me to win them back.

The dreams are expressing the pain of having no more chances.

The pain of reaching for people who are no longer reachable.

The pain of loving people who are no longer part of my life.

I miss their presence.

I miss their closeness.

I miss being able to share space with them.

I miss being known by them.

I miss being able to reach out and find them there.

Missing those things does not mean I am moving backward.

It means those connections mattered.

Something important has changed over this year.

I no longer spend my time wishing I could return to the relationship.

What I grieve now is the loss itself.

The regret.

The unfinished conversation.

The reality that some things cannot be repaired.

That shift matters.

It is evidence that I have moved from bargaining toward mourning.

The people I most wish could see my growth may never see it.

That is a real loss.

There is sadness in knowing that the people who inspired change in me may never witness the person I became.

But their absence does not erase the change.

The work still counts.

The growth still counts.

The lessons still count.

Even if no one I lost ever acknowledges them.

Today I am allowed to miss them.

Today I am allowed to cry.

Today I am allowed to feel grief.

And when my grieving time is over, I can return to the life that is still unfolding around me.

Not because the loss is resolved.

Not because I no longer care.

But because my life is larger than this grief.