This Is Me Taking The Baby Steps To Get Over You

Last night was the first night I went to bed not thinking of you. It was the first night I slept in the middle of the bed instead of on the left. Before I went to bed, I got rid of the night stand on the right. I don’t need a bed with two night stands anymore. I don’t need a Spotify account for two users, the kind that lets two people listen at the same time. I don’t need to make an entire pot of coffee, but I do anyway. Maybe that’s why I’m so jittery as I write this in our old spot in the run down diner. Maybe it’s because I am still afraid I’ll run into you. Baby steps.

I check your social media less often. You changed your profile picture four days ago. It’s not you and your cat anymore. It’s you with your arms wrapped around a blonde girl with a smile. You’re smiling, too. I’m glad you’re happy. I want you to be happy, but it still stings. It stings that you can be happy and I still seem to move so slowly. Days feel like weeks and minutes feel like an eternity. That’s what we were supposed to be. Eternity. Forever. And I guess it’s just taking me longer to find out what my forever looks like without you in it.

Truthfully, I am not sure I want to heal. I’m not sure I want to unfollow you on social media. Moving on is scary. It’s like I boarded up the windows of our love when a storm was coming and instead of staying to weather it, you evacuated. And now it’s just me. I don’t dare take down the shutters and let the light in because I’ll finally have to come to terms with the fact that you didn’t want to stay. And I deserve someone who wants to stay. I deserve someone who wants to fight. I deserve someone who weathers the storm with me and tells me the sun will come out tomorrow. If I move on, I have to become that person. I have to be that person who stays. I have to be that person who fights. I have to be the person that tells myself that the sun will come out tomorrow. I just don’t know if I can love myself that much.

But this is me trying. This is me making the baby steps. I delete your number. I unfollow you on social media. I have occasional lapses. I’ll look you up on Facebook. I’ll reread old letters. But there are days when you aren’t my first thought in the morning. Then there are days when you aren’t even my second thought. I am fragile, but I am fighting. I am fighting against my better judgement and my stubborn dedication to this love that’s overstayed its welcome. The sun does come out sometimes. I take down the shutters and clear out some of your stuff. Some of it I keep, but it doesn’t hurt nearly as much when the light shines on it. Baby steps.