#taylorreid

Falling out of love with someone you still like feels exactly like lying in a warm bed and hearing the alarm clock. No matter how good you feel right now, you know it's time to go.

You start to understand that grief is chronic. That it's more about remission and relapse than it is about a cure. What that means to you is that you can't simply wait for it to be over. You have to move through it, like swimming in an undertow.

I'll love you until we're so old we can barely walk on our own and we have to get walkers and put those cut-up yellow tennis balls on them. I'll love you past that, actually. I'll love you until the end of time.

I don't think that true love means your only love. I think true love means loving truly. Loving purely. Loving wholly. Maybe, if you're the kind of person who's willing to give all of yourself, the kind of person who is willing to love with all of your heart even though you've experienced just how much it can hurt... maybe you get lots of true loves, then. Maybe that's the gift you get for being brave.

We loved each other and we lost each other. And now, even though we still love each other, the pieces don't fit like they used to. I could make myself fit for him. He could make himself fit for me. But that's not true love.

It's messy to love after heartbreak. It's painful and it forces you to be honest with yourself about who you are. You have to work harder to find the words for your feelings, because they don't fit into any prefabricated boxes. But it's worth it. Because look what you get: Great loves. Meaningful loves. True loves.

I once thought that grief was chronic, that all you could do was appreciate the good days and take them along with the bad. And then I started to think the maybe the good days aren't just days; maybe the good days can be good weeks, good months, good years.  Now I wonder if grief isn't something like a shell.  You wear it for a long time and then one day you realize you've outgrown it. So you put it down.  It dines't mean that I want to let go of the memories of you or the love I have for you. But it does mean that I want to let go of the sadness. I won't ever forget you... I don't want to and I don't think I'm capable of it. But I do think that I can put the pain down. I think I can leave it on the ground and walk away, only coming back to visit every once in a while, no longer carrying it with me. Not only do I think I can do that, but I think I need to.  I will carry you in my heart always, but I cannot carry your loss on my back anymore. If I do, I'll never find any new joy for myself. I will crumble under the weight of your memory. I have to look forward, into a future where you cannot be. Instead of back, to a past filled with what we had.  I have to let you go and I have to ask you to let me go.

I love him. I love this man. No one knows me the way he knows me, no one loves me the way he loves me. There is other love out there for me. But it's different. It isn't this. It isn't this exact love. It's better and it's worse. But I guess that's sort of the point of love between two people– you can't re-create it. Every time you love, everyone you love, the love is different. You're different in it. Right now, I want nothing but to revel in this love.