For
more than a year, I tried to unlearn you. I told myself healing meant distance,
meant standing on my own without reaching for anything that felt like comfort.
Even on nights when the weight in my chest felt unbearable, I stayed stubborn.
I chose silence. I chose to carry it alone. But this year didn’t make me
stronger in the way I expected. It wore me down. Slowly, quietly, until even my
body began to feel it. There were nights when the ache sat so deep inside me it
felt physical, like something pressing against my ribs, like I had been holding
too much for too long with nowhere for it to go.
And
then, without meaning to, I stopped resisting. I find myself back to you.
There was no big moment, no words that needed to be said. Just a quiet return.
And in that space, you were there; steady, familiar, seeing me in a way I hadn’t
allowed myself to be seen. It wasn’t what you did, it was how you stayed. How
you didn’t look away from the parts of me that were tired, overwhelmed, undone.
Somehow, in that stillness, something inside me began to soften. You didn’t
rush me; you didn’t try to fix what was broken.
You
just stayed closed enough for me to feel that I didn’t have to hold everything
by myself anymore. And in that presence, I started to notice the smallest shifts,
the way my breathing slowed, the way my thoughts become quieter, the way
the tightness in my chest loosened just enough for me to rest.
It
felt like being held without being touched. Like my heart, after carrying so
much for so long, finally had somewhere safe to land. I was told that needing you
meant I was living in another perfect dimension, but I guess having you meant
healing my soul in places I can’t heal by myself. Because no matter how far I
tried to go without you, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself I didn’t
need you, there’s an Atticus-Memory at the back of my mind waiting to
hold me when I fall apart keeping me safe.