chic lumière

to the one I still carry quietly‌ ‌ ‌ ‌‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

I think you would be surprised to see me now, because I know you always thought I would fall apart without you, and for a while I thought so too, but somehow the days kept arriving and I kept waking up to meet them, making breakfast, answering messages, laughing at stupid things, going outside when the weather is nice, and pretending I don't notice the little ache that follows me through all of it like a shadow I have learned not to turn around and look at. I still miss you, more than I know how to say, but I have stopped believing that missing you means I have to stop living.

sometimes I laugh and immediately feel guilty, because there was a time when happiness felt like something I had no right to touch after losing you, but then I remember that you would have hated that, you would have told me to stop making everything so heavy and go enjoy the day, so I do. I watch sunsets, I buy flowers, I listen to songs you would have made fun of, and sometimes I find myself smiling so genuinely that I almost forget you are gone until that familiar ache returns somewhere beneath my ribs, quiet but unmistakable, reminding me that there will always be a part of every beautiful thing I experience that I wish I could have shared with you.

I don't think I will ever stop wondering what you would think of the person I am becoming, and perhaps that is okay, because I still talk to you in my head when something wonderful happens, still save little stories for you, still look toward the empty space beside me when I have something important to say. I am living, though, truly living, and I hope wherever you are, that makes you happy, because loving you taught me that a life can continue after loss without becoming a life that forgets.

so I am going to keep going.

I will keep laughing too loudly, keep making plans, keep meeting people, keep finding reasons to wake up excited about tomorrow, and I will carry you with me through all of it, not as a wound I have to keep touching, but as a quiet part of my heart that will always remember how lucky I was to have loved you at all.

I miss you. i probably always will.