Forgetting About It

Sometimes I’ll be doing something ordinary—making coffee, hearing a song, thinking about something I want to tell her—and for a few seconds, it’s like nothing ever happened. She’s still here. I can call her. I can see her. Everything is fine.

Then it comes back. The same thing it’s always been. She’s gone.

People say time helps, but I don’t think that’s exactly true. What time does is teach you how to carry it differently. Some days the weight is manageable and I almost trick myself into thinking I’m okay. Other days I’ll remember something small—her voice, the way she laughed, something she used to say—and it hits me all over again like I just found out for the first time.

I still catch myself reaching for my phone to text her. I still think she’s going to walk through the door. I still have conversations with her in my head that I’ll never get to have out loud. Part of me keeps refusing to accept it, not because I don’t understand what happened, but because accepting it feels like losing her all over again.

I miss her more than I have words for. I miss the person I was when she was still here. I miss all the things I didn’t say and all the time I thought we’d have later. I didn’t know then that later isn’t guaranteed to anyone.

I don’t know when this stops feeling so raw, if it ever does. Maybe it’s not supposed to stop. Maybe the fact that it still hurts is just proof of how much she mattered.

She mattered more than anything.