The Way I Loved You

The photo felt appropriate.

I don't think about this very often anymore.

But every once in a while, something brushes against what is still a tender place in me and makes me look at it again.

Today, it was a woman reading a poem she had written.

The premise was simple:

Maybe you never loved me.

Maybe you loved the way I loved you.

And there is a difference.

I’ve been sitting with that.

Because I loved you in a way that made you feel important.

I chose you.

I trusted you.

I wanted you.

I desired you.

I missed you.

I worried about you.

I believed in you.

I admired you.

I remembered everything.

I wanted to hear what you thought.

I wanted to know what you felt.

I wanted your body close to mine.

I wanted your presence in my life.

I believed in the man you told me you were.

I saw the best in you, sometimes long after your behavior should have made that impossible.

I forgave you far too easily.

And when I tried to tell you that you had hurt me, somehow I ended up comforting you.

You felt terrible.

You felt like I was giving you a bad performance review.

And because I loved you, I softened my pain so you wouldn’t have to feel so badly about causing it.

I mistook time for love.

Attention for love.

Expensive gifts for love.

Beautiful words for love.

There was so much that looked like love.

Until love required action.

Accountability.

Repair.

Change.

And then there wasn’t much there.

Eventually, I stopped forgiving so easily.

I stopped letting a beautiful moment erase an ugly one.

I started asking questions.

I started naming the things that didn’t make sense.

I expected accountability.

I needed you to care about what your choices were doing to me, not just how badly you felt when I told you they hurt.

And that’s when things changed.

Because I wasn’t looking at you the same way anymore.

I wasn’t reflecting back the man you wanted to believe yourself to be.

I was asking you to look at the man your choices were showing me.

Maybe you never loved me.

Maybe you loved the way I made you feel.

Until I didn’t make you feel that way anymore.

It has been interesting processing the aftermath of all of this.

Because for a long time, being discarded and replaced felt like proof that I had never mattered.

Like I had somehow been interchangeable.

Like everything I thought had been significant between us couldn’t possibly have been significant if you could simply move on.

I don’t believe that anymore.

I know I mattered.

Deeply.

Not because I need to believe you secretly loved me better than your actions showed.

You didn’t.

But because I know what I gave you.

And you knew it too.

You lied so hard to keep it.

There is no part of me that envies the woman you chose.

Because I know how you love.

And I know who you are.

I can’t help but wonder if the idea of me feels different to you now.

Because you know how I love, too.

You know what it felt like to be wanted by me.

Desired by me.

Touched by me.

Trusted by me.

Believed in by me.

Chosen by me.

Loved by me.

And eventually, you lost it.

Not because of one choice.

Not because of one lie.

Not because you didn’t come to the hospital.

Not because there was someone else.

Those were pieces of something much bigger.

You lost it slowly, through the accumulation of choices you made while somehow believing my love would survive all of them.

The lies.

The selfishness.

The arrogance.

The times you didn’t show up.

The things you allowed me to believe because the truth might have cost you something you wanted to keep.

You knew how deeply I loved you.

You lied so hard to keep it.

And somehow, you were still arrogant enough to believe you could treat that love carelessly and never really lose it.

But you did.

And how convenient that someone else was already there, willing to accept you exactly as you were.

I hope she’s okay.