Still Here

It's 2 a.m. again. You know the time without checking the clock.

You almost texted him tonight. You typed it out. You read it twice. You didn't send it. Or maybe you did, and now you're watching the read receipt sit there like a stone in your stomach.

You keep going back to the conversation — the one where it ended. You replay it like maybe this time you'll catch the line you should have said. Maybe this time you won't say the thing that made him quiet.

You wish you'd been softer. You wish you'd been louder. You wish you'd asked the question you didn't ask. You wish you hadn't asked the one you did.

You hated the way he — you loved the way he — both of those are true and your chest doesn't know which one to hold.

The bad memories hurt. You expected that. But the good ones — the laugh, the hand on the back of your neck, the inside joke no one else will ever get — those are worse. Those are the ones that pull.

You scroll past a song and have to sit down. You walk past a restaurant and forget how to breathe. His name lights up on someone else's screen and you feel it in your knees.

Some days you cry in the shower because that's where no one can hear it. Some days you don't cry at all and you wonder if something is wrong with you because you don't.

Your friends say give it time. Your friends say he wasn't right for you. Your friends are kind and tired and out of words. You smile. You say you're okay. You go home and check his profile one more time.

You know it's over. You know it in your head. But your body hasn't caught up yet. Your body still reaches for him in the morning before you remember.

You're not pathetic. You're not broken. You're not too much. You're not still here because you didn't try hard enough to leave. You're still here because you loved him, and that doesn't have an off switch just because you need it to.

It still hurts because it mattered.

That's all. That's all it is.

You don't have to be over it by now. You don't have to be over it by any deadline anyone else has set.

The pain is real. The pull is real. And both of them can ease.

Not because you forget — that's not what this is — but because the memories, the good ones and the bad ones, can stop pressing quite so hard on your chest.

If this is where you are right now

If you are still missing him and the ache keeps coming back, read: How to Stop Missing Him.

If the urge to check his Instagram or social media keeps reopening the wound, read: How to Stop Checking His Social Media After a Breakup.

If you want help bringing the emotional intensity down, you can book a private 1:1 EFT tapping session here.