Jasmin Chew

When Someone You Love Starts To Become A Memory

When you love someone, you start to notice things.

The way their fingers curl around yours and soften as they fall asleep next to you. How, when they smile, wrinkles form and crease around their eyes. The softness of their voice in the morning, how they hum and the world goes quiet.

Then, one day, you start to realize it — maybe this is all there is. Maybe they are elusive. Maybe the space between you two is nothing more than just space.

I wonder what it is about certain people and why we hold onto them, even if we know they’re no good for us. The ones who reassure us that we are wanted and needed, but not enough, not in the ways we want them to. The ones who embrace their inconsistency. The ones who remind us they don’t actually believe in love, and maybe, you shouldn’t either.

Let me be the first to say that I know how hard it is to love someone and realize you should let them go. I know that feeling of disappointment – it sits heavy in the pit of you, unmoving. I know how hard it is to distance yourself from them because, in your heart, you believe in it. You believe in something. Fate, maybe. The right timing. Euphoria.

But no matter what fate has planned and no matter how much you love someone, if you start to doubt yourself and who you are and what you believe in, you have to let them go.

When you love someone, it can be hard to move on. But one day it will get easier. Every thought, every feeling, every memory will grow distant. And then you will start to heal.