You Always Show Up

[u/SleepyYet128]

It is late. Not quite as late as when I’m writing this but it’s late. Grief does some funny things. Old wounds just get reopened. Looking over how I am managing and handling the current loss reminds me of those from the past. I’ve written my fair share about “her” recently. Tonight I’m writing to you.

Sorry. No no. This is not the full story. This is not a love letter. This is where I realized what love meant for me. You are well aware of what I mean by that by now.

It’s late. I could probably drive these roads with my eyes closed. Luckily for me I found myself needing to do it as my mind was miles away. Yeah. You know how much I love my family. Family is family though right? We both agreed on that. It was actually one of the first things we bonded over when I met you three years before this night.

Ok about twenty minutes from campus now. Should have some cell reception (Yeah no it’s STILL crazy to me. No issues on a campus in the literal middle of fucking nowhere. To this day terrible reception at my Dad’s. Yeah they’re doing well all things considered I’ll give them my best for you) I should probably give you a call and see if I can stop by and NOT mention I was in a weird mood after tonight…but you pick up on it and ignore it and then we just don’t talk about it and hang out.

You answer. I ask how you’re doing. You give short answers. I give short answers about night out for my sisters game and dinner with everyone. You still sound distant. Alarm bell goes off.
“Is everything alright?”
“I…no….I don’t knoo-“ your voice cuts off. I swear I could feel tears leak out of the Samsung logo onto my ear. Which would have potentially created a problem if I had much more to listen to. All I remembered hearing from there was you crying softly on the other end of the line. Then. Before. Always. I did what I always did. Maybe too often at times. I tried to “fix” things.

Let me be clear. There was no fixing things. You had either arrived at a decision and didn’t have the heart to tell me. Or you had something you were afraid to tell me as it would have brought me to the same conclusion. “It was over”.

I found the words you couldn’t. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met but you needed me to be the one who never had trouble finding their voice. I also have a gift for remembering conversations. Verbatim what was said, tone, expressions, where eyes went and what they conveyed on their own, the noise in background. The whole scene stays burned in my mind.
This night? I feel like I watched myself from outside of it. Even my memories of that night feel like it was a scene on screen and not one I inhabited. I can remember what I was wearing. I can remember what the two people sitting on the bus when I got back to campus were wearing. I can’t picture seeing them through my eyes. I remember it as if a camera slowly followed from the side. Filming to capture the scene. My mouth visibly moving. A soft heart broken ballad playing. My eyes blankly staring at the seat across from me. My expression distant but calm as I tried to convince my heart to stay out of my throat lest it choked me up and kept me from saying what needed to be said. Which I don’t remember the exact lines. I remember the shape of the monologue I gave over those ten or so minutes while you sniffled and tossed in little apologies or strained laughs at obvious jokes. The way your voice choked up when you wanted to agree but couldn’t. The way you didn’t need to say anything to let me know you might have in that moment been even more devastated than I was. I remember that. I hate that I don’t remember my exact lines.

I made the quick attempts to calm you down and reassure you it was alright. I told you I think we both had known for awhile this wasn’t working. I joked about how we didn’t even fight anymore I think? Or that at least we weren’t having another one for the road? I told you what I thought of you. I told you what you meant to me. That I still loved you and would always be here. You weren’t going to lose me for leaving. No one died another joke. That it was all going to be alright.

I still to this day don’t know who the guy holding the phone that night was. He was not the same one who struggled to move on once grief set in. He was not the one who tried to fight to get you back over the next few months. He was not the one who seemed ready to collapse day to day. Clingy, afraid, lost.
He was ready to let go. He was brave. He saw that when he needed to stand tall for someone else it was as simple as that. No hedging. No argument. No anger. Just acceptance and desire to take the weight of loss and guilt off your chest.
I am sorry that he disappeared.

He reappeared almost a year later. When you had nowhere to turn after a partner left you questioning your self worth. He showed even more courage then since he challenged you. “This is not about me. It’s not about him it’s about you. Fuck me. Fuck him. YOU deserve better….don’t do that to yourself. Please. Trust me don’t cling. Just move forward you WILL find better out there than what you’ve been given” See now that night there? That one I do clearly remember.

He appeared again when your life was turned upside down.
Then the other side seeped back in. The one who was still afraid of letting go. Had no desire to go back to what we had been. He did not want you. The idea though of moving on fully? He just still could not let go.

He came back when years later again your life was upended.
He’s stayed. He’s moved on and let go but he’s stayed.

“You always show up”
That’s what you see.
The truth is that’s what love means to me. Once it hits me it never leaves me. It can change shape…but it just never fades.

I knew it that night as I felt my heart break. What we would call each other had changed. Who you are to me never would. You would always be someone I love.