we don't talk anymore but i still dream of you

 dear diary,

    sometimes i want to talk to the people who know me best but then i remember they are not in my life and they don't know me anymore. i will think of them while i wait for the kettle to boil. 

    i am a lucky girl. i have never had the devastating experience of losing someone to sickness or tragedy. my life has never known loss the way my parents have. i have lived the larger part of my life completely unmarred by grief and the heavy weight of knowing you can never talk to someone you love ever again. 

    that's not to say i haven't struggled with the grief of losing someone that is still very much alive. i think there is a simple tragedy within that. while i am fortunate in not having lost someone to death, there is a quiet grief in knowing a person that was once a home has closed their doors and thrown away the key. 

    i don't think you can truly unlove someone you once loved. the love never really goes away, it just changes into something new. i can still have so much appreciation and love for the memories i once shared with someone and have no desire to return to that time of my life and to the person i once was. and there is grief in that as well- grieving a form of you that was only existed with that one person. 

    last year, i lost the person i would be spending the rest of my life with. the first person to understand me right down to my soul and the first person to see me in ways that i hadn't been seen before. i was unprepared for how deeply i would grieve him and his absence in my life, but also the version of me that existed before i was ruined or changed or grew. however you'd like to describe it, i became it. i mourned the sixteen year old version of me, the one that had not known love and the one that had not known heartbreak. but over time, i realized i would not be the person i am today without having gone through that tumultuous time of my life, and had it not been for him. just because it was my first love does not mean it will be my greatest. just the first. and isn't that such a lovely and privileged thing? i get to fall in love again. over and over again, if i should choose. 

    even though he is not in my life, he was at one point the person who knew me best. we don't talk anymore but sometimes i still see whispers of him in my dreams. the love will never not be there, it's just something new and something that is not his anymore but solely mine. i will always think of him while i watch the kettle boil.

    the same goes for my best friend of the past five years. over the course of first year, a mix of miscommunication and old wounds resurfaced leading to the dissolution of our friendship. it was messy and protracting which honestly made it more hurtful and confusing than losing a lover. i think that while i still appreciate what we had very much, we had simply outgrown each other. and that is an okay thing to admit. if the people you surround yourself with are hindering you reaching your full potential or the person you want to grow into or if you are not doing the same, it is best to let go. sometimes, the most loving thing you can do is leave. it is a bittersweet and hard thing to do, but staying as a version of yourself that you do not want to be any longer hurts even more. that doesn't mean i do not still think about her and our adventures while i wash the dishes. 

    in the span of 6 months, two people i once thought were my constants were no longer in my life anymore. while it was painful and hard, i got to become someone i couldn't while they were actively in my life. i could become someone they could not know anymore, not just someone they did not know. and i think there is something quietly beautiful about. i will become the person i said i would always become, and you will not witness it- it could be something that is only mine to know. 

    when i was fourteen, i got into a huge fight with one of my best friends since childhood. we met in pre-school and our summers were full of sidewalk chalk art, bubbles, and bouquet making from the flowers in her backyard. i knew her inside out and she knew me the same, even though we played pretend with princess dresses and high heels, i still knew her heart like it was the back of my hand. we didn't speak for four years. i would walk behind the ghost of her in the hallways, trailing the scent of her perfume and pretending to ignore her presence. in the twelfth grade, after years of not speaking, i was at a grad event. fire smoke clung to my clothes as i watched the people around me bathed in the warm glow of the bonfire. she sat across from me and we shared a look of understanding and a small smile. yet still, no words were said. as i sat and stared, probably looking like some creeper, my eyes began to tear up until i could no longer pretend i was crying just because of the fire smoke. 

    without time to think of the consequences, i walked up to her and apologized for everything that had happened and said i still think about her all the time. little did i know she felt the same and every day she had sat with the same guilt i had. with a huge sob, we both hugged and it was like the last few years hadn't happened and we were the same girls wearing princess dresses. 

    i think a beautiful part of life is that we don't know what will happen and we don't know who we will eventually become. the best we can do is have compassion for the versions we once were and the people we once loved. everyone who i have loved will never be unloved by me. they will, in some form or another, reside in my heart- the scent of perfume, light reflected of irises and sun shimmering across cheekbones, pinky promises that never came into fruition. 

    we do not talk anymore, but i still dream of you. 

xoxo, 

dani