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Please don't respond. Just listen, consider what I'm saying, and try to let it in if you can. Promise? If your mind has lingered on me, and you've found yourself having thoughts about me, then let me also say that my mind has lingered on you, too. I've missed you. I've wondered about you. And sometimes, when I do, I close my eyes and daydream about you. But I don't daydream about us. I daydream about you. I daydream about you being happy. In my mind's eye, when I see you, I see you as you are. Having your good days and your bad days. Having moments when you're full of light, and moments when your edges come out. Maybe because you're tired. Maybe because you're hurting. Or maybe because you're feeling empty. I don't know. But when I envision you, my heart is always drawn toward the same thing: I imagine you happy. I imagine you at peace. I imagine you having a sense of safety and steadiness within yourself, so that even on really hard days, when life feels like too much, you still have something inside of you that keeps you anchored. And I think that's part of why it's been so hard for me to stay angry with you. Even though I gave past the point of what I reasonably could before, and even though I'm not willing to do that anymore. I can't. I love me, too, and it's such a relief to finally have myself again. But I can recognize my own hurt without losing sight of yours, even if i wish I couldn't sometimes. Because I know, to a degree, what you might be feeling. Maybe not totally. Maybe not completely, or in the same way and manner. I wouldn't want to assume that I know everything you've experienced or what it feels like to be you. But if I know you like I think I do, then I think I can understand at least some of your hurt because I've lived something similar, too. And maybe that's part of what has always felt so familiar. Family, friends, lovers, mirrors of our shadows, lessons we were meant to learn from one another... whatever we were, or whatever all of this was meant to be, the label doesn't even matter to me anymore. Because underneath all of that, I recognize YOU. I see YOU. Past the hurt. Beyond the wounds. Beyond the mistakes, the difficult moments, and the parts of yourself that might be hard to make sense of sometimes. I see further and deeper than your worst. And you know what? At this point, I don't even need you to see me or recognize me in return. Not because reciprocity doesn't matter to me. It does. And not because it hasn't hurt when I haven't felt seen or understood. It has. But I also understand that we all carry things that shape the way we experience ourselves and the people around us. Sometimes our wounds become so familiar that we don't even realize how much they're influencing what we feel, what we see, or how we respond. I know that's been true for me. And I wonder whether some of that might be true for you, too. So how can I hold your hurt against you without at least trying to understand where some of it might come from? And how can I expect us to see each other clearly in moments when our own pain might be making that difficult? That doesn't mean the hurt didn't matter. It did. Both yours and mine. I just don't want the hurt to become the only or primary thing I see when I think of you. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but I care about you because of YOU. Not because I need to be chosen. Not because I need you to give me something, or because I'm hoping to get something back.I just simply care. And please, hear me when I say this: YOU are there. I have always seen it. When we first met. Through the good, the bad, and even now. And I believe that part of you will still be there whether we ever talk again or not. I don't know if you see yourself the way I do. And I know my understanding of you is only one perspective. But I hope that, somewhere along the way, you get to experience more of the good that I believe is already within you. I also understand that I can't make you do anything you aren't willing to do. I can't drown you in compassion and somehow make the hurt disappear. I can't give you enough love, patience, or understanding to make everything feel better. Believe me, a part of me wishes I could. But I know it doesn't work that way. There are things that only you can come to understand, want, and choose for yourself. Just as there are things I've had to come to understand and choose for myself. And maybe that's what hurts the most. Because I genuinely ache for your well-being more than I ache to be in your life or to be connected to you. I really do. And I think that says something about how much worth I see in you, apart from anything you could ever give me. I can't pour into you anymore, but my heart still tugs because I care. I want to, but I can't. And there's something painful about having so much compassion for someone while also knowing that you have to leave some things alone. Not because the care is gone. It still there and I doubt it will ever go away. But because I have to care for myself, too. Do you remember when I asked you to make the destruction we created mean something? And I do mean we, because the chaos wasn't created in a vacuum. My choices added to it, too. I know that, and I don't want to overlook my part in what happened. I remember being desperate and in tears, asking you to make something meaningful out of all that pain. I remember telling you that I wouldn't consider the pain I experienced to have been for nothing if you could somehow make it mean something. And I still remember what you said: "I can't predict the future." I know you couldn't. And looking back, I understand that there was truth in that answer. Neither of us could have known what would come from everything that happened. And please know that my intention in bringing this up isn't to make you feel guilty, or to pressure you into doing anything. I'm not asking you to prove anything to me. I don't want you to feel like you owe me something because of what happened between us. I just wanted to tell you something that I still believe: You still can. It's not too late. Not to change what happened. Not to undo the hurt, or make everything turn out the way either of us might have hoped. But to allow something meaningful to come from it. To learn something about yourself. To understand something that maybe wasn't clear before. To find a little more peace with the things you've carried. To have something good grow out of something that was so painful. And I don't say that as though I know what that should look like for you. I don't. That's something only you can decide. I just hope that if something meaningful does come from all of this, it comes from a place within you that genuinely wants it. Not for me. Not to make anything up to me. But for you. Because you matter, too. you always have. I think a part of me will always worry about you, and I don't even fully understand why. Maybe because I recognize something familiar in your hurt. Maybe because I've seen qualities in you that I genuinely value. Or maybe because, despite everything, my heart still has a tenderness toward you that I haven't quite been able to explain. I don't know. I just know that I care. And I hope you understand that caring doesn't mean I'm asking to come back into your life, or that I'm expecting you to come back into mine. I can want good things for you without needing to be there to experience them with you. I think that's where my heart has finally landed. I put all of my heart on the table with this one. And I'm not saying any of this lightly. I've thought about it, sat with it, and tried to understand it as carefully as I can. Take it for what it's worth. More than anything, I hope you hear the intentions I have for you. I hope you can receive this as care, without feeling like there's something you have to do with it. Because even after everything, I still find myself hoping that life is gentle with you. That you find moments of genuine happiness. That you experience peace, not just around you, but within yourself. And that, even on the days when your edges are out, when you're tired, hurting, or struggling to find your footing, you remember that there's still something good and worthwhile in you. That's what I see when I close my eyes and think of you. Not us, just you. Happy. At peace. And finally able to feel it for yourself.