It’s been a year since you’ve been gone but I’ve learned that you never really left.
It feels like my love for you never changed, you still cross my mind on the most random days and the thought of you still makes me smile.
It feels empty on some nights when I want to reach out to you but I have nowhere to send the words.
It feels lonely when I book a table at our favorite restaurant, but for one this time.
It feels weird, hearing your laugh echoing in my ears, smelling your scent in the air and sometimes I swear I see you in the crowd.
It feels like the little things now hold the most weight. Like the way you said my name, how you liked extra milk in your coffee, how you hated the rain and how you always knew when something was wrong before I even spoke.
It feels like everything has slowed down. I’ve grown softer, calmer and more vulnerable because now I know how fragile it all is.
It feels heavier on special occasions, your birthday, Christmas, your favorite holiday, where your absence is all I can think about.
It feels like I’ve learned that joy and sorrow can coexist, that I can laugh and still miss you just as much.
It feels like I carry pieces of you into every decision I make, wondering quietly what you would have done.
It feels like losing you has made me love the people still here with a fierceness I didn’t know I had.
But most of all, it feels like I’m learning how to love you all over again and how to carry you in my heart again.
A year without you has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done but it feels like it also taught me the depth of my love, the illusion of time and the beauty of living like every day could be the last.
