MY Nateynate 🖤

Seventeen years…

not just time—

a whole lifetime stitched into memories

that still breathe inside me.

We met as almost-strangers,

but you became my always.

The kind of love that didn’t ask,

didn’t doubt,

just was.

And today—

today should have been ours.

I catch myself reaching for you

in the quiet moments,

in the loud ones too,

in every version of life

where you’re supposed to be standing next to me.

I miss you in ways

that don’t even have words—

in the way the air feels heavier,

in the silence that shouldn’t be there,

in the love that still hasn’t gone anywhere.

Because it didn’t end.

It didn’t fade.

It didn’t get replaced.

You loved me in a way

that felt like home—

safe, deep, real…

like I never had to question

if I mattered.

And now I carry that love

like something sacred—

not something I’m trying to find again,

but something I was lucky enough to have

once in a lifetime.

They say people move on…

but how do you move on

from a love that became part of you?

I won’t replace you—

I couldn’t if I tried.

But I’m learning…

that your love didn’t leave me empty.

It left me full.

Full of memories,

full of lessons,

full of a kind of love

most people spend their whole lives searching for.

And maybe…

no one will ever love me the way you did—

but that doesn’t mean

I wasn’t loved deeply enough

to last forever.

Seventeen years…

and still,

it’s you.

in the quiet places,

in the moments that were supposed to be ordinary

but ache now.

I wish you were here—

not as a memory,

not as a lesson,

but as you.

Breathing. Existing. Choosing me.

It’s been two years since your soul left this earth,

and I lost my mind somewhere along the way,

still wandering,

still reaching,

trying to find it in places you no longer exist.

There is no one like you in this world.

That’s not romantic exaggeration,

it’s a fact my body learned the hard way.

You didn’t just touch my heart—

you reached my bones

and left fingerprints there.

You damaged me

in ways love only can.

The kind that doesn’t bruise the skin

but changes the shape of a person.

I am different because of you.

I will always be.

And still—

I love you.

With my ribs,

with my spine,

with every quiet ache that refuses to heal.

I love you with all my bones,

The love was taken,

not chosen to end.

No goodbye practiced,

no hands slowly loosening.

There was no moment

where we decided to be brave

and walk in opposite directions.

Life made the choice for us,

sharp and sudden,

without asking what it would cost.

We were not unfinished.

We were interrupted.

I still carry the shape of you

in ordinary hours—

in the quiet after the kids fall asleep,

in the way I reach for safety

and remember where it used to live.

This is not longing for the past.

This is love with nowhere to go.

I did not fail to move on.

I was faithful to something real.

So if I stand alone some days,

it is not because I am unlovable,

but because I once knew

what being chosen felt like—

and I will not pretend

that absence is the same as goodbye.

The love was taken,

not chosen to end.

And I will carry it

without shame,

without apology,

until my heart learns

fourteen and a half together—

that is not a phase,

not a season,

not a “once upon a time” that faded quietly.

That is a life learned side by side.

Mornings and arguments.

Routines worn smooth by repetition.

Hands that knew each other without asking.

That is growing up together,

becoming adults in the same direction,

choosing each other again and again

until choosing became instinct.

It wasn’t short.

It wasn’t casual.

It wasn’t replaceable.

It was a deep, real, grown love—

the kind that builds a nervous system,

that teaches the body what home feels like,

that leaves an absence loud enough

to echo forever.

We didn’t just love.

We lived.

And a whole life was built,

brick by brick,

and I want the clock to hurry,

to stop pretending this night is holy

when it feels so hollow.

The gifts are wrapped,

bows tight like smiles I force,

but the room knows you’re missing.

The walls remember your laugh.

The silence remembers your place.

Love feels thin tonight—

like breath in cold air,

visible only because it hurts.

I feel it starving,

pacing the house,

looking for hands that aren’t here anymore.

Who would choose this ache?

Who would sign up for loving

after it leaves claw marks behind?

Not I,

yet here I am,

still loving you anyway.

It blurs at the edges,

turning every breath into something heavy

and every thought into something sharp.

I’m so tired of being tired…

tired of waking up inside the same storm

with no shelter but my own shaking hands.

I miss you so much it folds me in half.

It steals the strength from my bones

and wraps itself around my ribs

until even breathing feels borrowed.

Nothing feels right without you —

every person I meet sounds like an echo,

every connection feels thin and temporary,

like no one can hold the pieces of me

the way you did,

or love me and my children

as a whole, sacred unit.

I’m sorry…

not because I did something wrong,

but because my heart still aches for a world

that no longer exists.

Because I’m still learning

how to walk alone

without dragging your memory behind me

like a broken wing.

I’m trying.

Even in the distortion,

even in the exhaustion,

there’s a small part of me

that still hopes

for clarity,

for peace,

for love that fits

Grief doesn’t leave.

It softens its voice,

but it never forgets your name.

Some days you’ll laugh again—

not because you’re healed,

but because your heart

remembered how to stretch.

You’ll feel them in small things—

the sunlight that hits just right,

a song that hums too familiar,

the silence before sleep.

Grief is love that has nowhere to go,

so it lives inside you,

changing shape until one day

it feels less like a wound

and more like a whisper that says,

“I’m still with you.”

Keep breathing.

Keep going.