I have spent weeks circling this letter, picking it up and setting it down again, afraid of what it might ask of me once it existed. I kept wondering if giving these words a body would make them heavier, or finally let me set them down. I questioned whether writing to you was necessary at all, whether silence would be the braver ending. But I have learned that some goodbyes are not about being witnessed. Some are simply about being honest. This one is for me.
I am closing a chapter of my life that has remained open far longer than it should have, a season defined by quiet hoping, by restraint mistaken for strength, by feelings carefully folded and hidden away like letters never sent. I stayed still for so long, waiting for the right moment, the right alignment of time and courage, convincing myself that patience was noble when in truth it was fear. I was afraid to give my feelings a voice, afraid that once spoken they would no longer belong safely to me. But I cannot live inside that silence anymore.
It feels almost cruel how timing works. Just as I began to believe I might finally be brave enough to tell you everything, to open my hands and let the truth fall where it may, I learned you had met someone new. And suddenly I was not here anymore, I was seventeen, sitting beside you, listening as you spoke about your high school girlfriend and the way you loved her. I remembered the sharp, quiet ache of learning you were engaged, and later, married. I remembered smiling through it all, nodding, offering encouragement while my heart splintered in private, wondering how long it would take before I stopped hurting over something I was never promised.
Back then, I told myself that time would dull it. And it did, but not in the way I expected. Time didn’t erase the feeling; it taught me how to carry it.
When I saw that you had met someone new this time, the heaviness returned, familiar and unwelcome. But it did not come alone. It arrived with a realization I could no longer ignore: I am not the person I was ten years ago. I am no longer willing to live suspended in longing, asking the universe when it will finally be my turn, measuring my life against a love that only ever existed in years of quiet longing and regret.
I once held onto the hope that when you came back home, our paths might finally cross in the right way. That I would meet you as my fuller self and confess everything I once rehearsed in silence. This time, there would be no guilt, no barriers, we would both be free. I see now that this was never a door meant to open. Not for me. Not for us. You never owed me anything, and I never believed you did. I simply believed, perhaps too stubbornly, that fate was arranging us slowly, carefully, behind the scenes.
Fate, I’ve learned, is not always gentle. Sometimes it is careless with the people it places in our lives. Sometimes it gives us mirrors when we are asking for answers. It wove you into some of the coldest, loneliest nights of my life, and also into moments that changed me forever, moments you never even knew you were part of. That matters to me. It always will.
You will always matter to me.
But what you are to me has changed.
Now, when I think of you, I think of a lighthouse. You were never meant to come to shore. You were never meant to stay. You stood at a distance, steady and unwavering, guiding me through waters I didn’t yet know how to navigate. When I was lost, standing on the fragile line between endings and beginnings, you reminded me, simply by existing, that light could still be found. Through you, I learned what steadiness felt like. Through you, I remembered the depth of love I was capable of giving, and the kind of love I deserved to receive.
Each time I thought of you, I wasn’t really thinking of you as you are now. I was learning who I was.
Just as I am no longer the person I was then, neither are you. I don’t know who you have become, the shape of your days, the sound of your laughter now, and I’ve made peace with that. What remains is nostalgia, soft and persistent, like a song you don’t hear often but never forget the words to.
You taught me something without ever intending to: how deeply I can love. How loyal I am. How fully I show up when my heart feels safe. You were steadiness for me once, and I will always be grateful for that, for the way you helped me through moments you never knew I was surviving.
There will always be love for you in my heart. But now it is gentler. It no longer claws its way into my throat or steals my breath with the fear of missing out on something that was never mine to hold. Now it rests quietly. It reminds me that love is not only found in grand confessions or shared futures. It exists in long car rides with Queen playing too loud, in laughter that leaves you gasping and tearful, in the comfort of sitting beside someone without needing to perform or become something else to be worthy of staying.
I will carry those memories with me when life tries to convince me that I must change myself to move forward.
And because I need to say it, because some truths deserve to be spoken once, clearly, before they are laid to rest, I loved you. In my own quiet, careful way. I loved you deeply and without condition. I could have spent a lifetime loving you if we had ever been given the chance to meet each other there.
But we didn’t. And I am learning that this, too, can be okay.
I hope your life is full in ways that surprise you. I hope it brings you adventure, softness, and a joy that feels effortless and true. You are a good person. You always were. You deserve a good life.
This is me letting go, not with bitterness, but with gratitude. Not with regret, but with tenderness. I am closing this chapter now, and I am walking forward carrying only what was meant to stay.
I wish you the best,
Kaley xx
