31/UK

🪬it's always you🪬

[karlvsn-deactivated20240312-dea]

[unreadable]

[ayshx-deactivated20251028]

So many people inspire me to be nothing like them.

[northern-8]

If You Ever Wonder

If you ever wonder whether you were enough...

You were.

Not because we were perfect. Not because life was easy but because you loved me with everything you knew how to give.

And I saw it.

I always saw it.

If you ever wonder whether you mattered...

You did.

More than words will ever be able to hold.

You became part of the way I see the world. You still live in the way I stop to watch a sunset.

The way I wander through garden centres.

The way I cook.

The way I look for hidden cafés and quiet beaches.

The way I listen to the waves.

The way I look up at the stars and wonder what you're looking at beneath the same sky.

The way I believe that ordinary moments are often the ones that matter most.

You became part of my story and because of that, you'll always be part of me.

If you ever wonder whether I regret loving you... I don't.

Not for a single moment.

If I could go back, knowing everything I know now... knowing how much it would hurt. Knowing how it would end.

I would still choose you. I would still choose every drive with no destination.

Every hot chocolate that somehow tasted better because you were there.

Every freezing night chasing the aurora.

Every dance we stole in the kitchen while dinner waited.

Every time we caught each other's eye from across the room and smiled as though we shared a secret no one else could hear.

Every moment we reached for each other's hand without thinking.

Every hug where we held on just a little longer because neither of us wanted to be the first to let go.

Every kiss beneath the blanket of darkness.

Every laugh that left us breathless.

Every playful argument over absolutely nothing.

Every opportunity we stole just to be together, however ordinary it seemed at the time.

Every plant my flat definitely didn't have room for.

Every dream we dared to dream.

Every plan we made.

Every sunrise we chased.

Every sunset we stood quietly watching.

Every wave we listened to as the world carried on around us.

Every star we searched for in the night sky.

Every version of home we found in each other.

Because loving you was never the mistake. It was one of the greatest privileges of my life.

If there's one thing I hope you never question, it's this:

You gave me memories that still make me smile before they make me cry.

And somehow, I think that's one of the most beautiful gifts love can leave behind.

I don't know what tomorrow looks like. I don't know where life will take either of us.

I don't know whether our story has already reached its final page or whether, somewhere in a future neither of us can see, life has another chapter waiting.

I've learned that some things aren't ours to know.

Only ours to live.

So wherever this life takes you...

I hope you laugh often.

I hope you find peace.

I hope you never lose the curiosity that made me fall in love with you.

I hope you always know how deeply worthy of love you are.

And if life is ever kind enough to let our paths cross again, you'll never have to wonder whether I'd be happy to see you.

I would.

Without hesitation.

Not because I've stood still.

Not because I've spent my life waiting.

But because some people leave a mark on your soul that time doesn't ask you to erase.

And if our paths never cross again...

Please know this.

You were loved. Completely. Deeply. Honestly.

You gave me a home when I didn't know I was looking for one.

You reminded me that love could feel safe.

That being understood was one of life's greatest gifts.

You changed me.

Not just while we were together.

But in all the years that followed.

For that, I will always be grateful.

Whenever I find myself standing beneath a sky full of stars, or listening to the waves meeting the shore, I think a part of me will always wonder if, somewhere beneath that same sky, beside another stretch of sea, you're pausing for a moment too.

There's something comforting about knowing that no matter where life takes us, we'll always share the same stars.

The same moon.

The same tides.

Perhaps that's enough.

Perhaps that's just another quiet way the world reminds me that some connections are never measured by distance.

So if you ever wonder whether you were enough...

Whether you mattered...

Whether you changed me...

The answer is yes.

In every way that matters.

With all the love I'll always carry,

Always,

Me.

[northern-8]

After You Left

I've realised that healing isn't as simple as people make it sound.

It isn't waking up one morning and discovering the ache has disappeared. It isn't forgetting. It isn't pretending that what we had mattered any less simply because it ended.

For me, it's been something quieter than that.

It's been learning how to carry a love that no longer has somewhere to go.

Some days, I do it well. Other days, I still find myself reaching for you without meaning to.

I can understand why we ended and still wish we hadn't. Those two truths don't compete with each other. They simply exist, side by side.

I still replay conversations. I still find myself wondering whether one different decision, one different sentence, one little act of courage might have changed everything.

I don't think I'm searching for someone to blame anymore. I think I'm searching for a world where neither of us had to lose what we found in each other. Maybe that's what love does when it has nowhere left to go.

It keeps wandering through old memories, gently asking, "What if?"

I don't know if those questions will ever completely disappear. Perhaps they aren't meant to. Perhaps they're simply part of loving someone deeply.

I'm learning that I don't have to answer every question to carry our story with kindness.

Love hasn't disappeared.

It has changed shape.

It lives now in the way I slow down to watch a sunset. In the roads that make me want to keep driving just to see where they lead. In the little cafés that make me smile because I know we'd have insisted on stopping. In every beautiful thing that still makes me think,

"I wish you could see this."

There are pieces of you that still live quietly in me.

You linger in the way I cook, because somewhere along the way I learned that preparing a meal can be another way of saying, "I love you."

You linger in the way I speak to myself.

I'm learning to replace criticism with compassion.

For so long, I spoke to myself in ways I would never have spoken to someone I loved.

Now I'm learning to be more patient. More forgiving. More understanding of the person I'm still becoming.

It's one of the greatest gifts I've given myself.

And in many ways, loving you helped me begin that journey.

You linger in the way I understand myself now.

Loving you encouraged me to look more honestly at the ways my childhood shaped how I see the world.

The walls I built.

The fears I carried.

The ways I sometimes mistook protecting myself for protecting my heart.

I'm learning to meet those parts of myself with compassion instead of judgement.

I'm learning that healing isn't about becoming someone new. It's about finding my way back to the person I was always capable of being.

If I'm honest, somewhere along the way I lost sight of some of the quiet kindness you saw in me when we first met.

I don't think it disappeared. I think it became buried beneath exhaustion, frustration, and the weight of everything I was carrying.

Not because I stopped caring.

Not because I loved you any less.

I was simply tired.

Burnt out.

Trying so hard to hold everything together that I forgot how to be gentle with myself.

I'm finding that kindness again now.

Not because I'm trying to become the person you wanted me to be.

Because I'm becoming the person I want to be.

I'm also learning that my worth was never supposed to be decided by the opinions of other people.

For so much of my life, I looked outward to understand who I was. I let criticism become truth. I let rejection become evidence that I wasn't enough. I carried other people's words far longer than they deserved to be carried.

Slowly, I'm learning to put that weight down.

I'm learning that my value doesn't rise and fall depending on whether someone understands me, chooses me, or approves of me.

I'm learning to see myself through kinder eyes.

To speak to myself with respect.

To recognise that I am worthy of love, compassion and belonging simply because I exist—not because I've earned them.

I think that's one of the greatest lessons I've taken from losing us.

Not that I became harder but that I needed to become gentler with myself.

To stop measuring my worth by how others saw me and start measuring it by the kind of person I choose to be.

Someone who leads with kindness.

Someone who remains curious.

Someone who loves deeply.

Someone who keeps growing.

If I've found my way back to those parts of myself, then in some quiet way, your love is still changing me.

And for that, I'll always be grateful.

You changed me.

Not only because I loved you.

But because loving you taught me to notice life more carefully.

To appreciate ordinary moments.

To say "I love you" while there's still time.

To understand that home isn't always somewhere you live.

Sometimes it's someone who forever changes the way your heart recognises peace.

I'm still learning what life looks like without us. Some days that feels impossibly heavy. Other days, I find myself smiling at a memory instead of crying over it.

I suppose that's what healing really is.

Not leaving someone behind but learning that it's possible to carry them without being crushed by the weight.

If I'm honest, there will probably always be a quiet part of me that wonders how your story unfolds from here.

I hope life has become gentler with you.

I hope you've found moments of peace.

I hope you're surrounded by people who remind you how worthy of love you are.

And somewhere, tucked away where expectation can't reach it, there's a quiet hope.

Not one that asks anything of you.

Not one that keeps me from living my own life.

Just a quiet belief that life has a way of surprising us when we least expect it.

Whether our paths cross again or not is something neither of us can know.

But if they ever do, I hope we meet as two people who have continued to grow.

Two people who have been kind to themselves.

Two people who can look at one another with warmth, gratitude and honesty.

Until then, I'll keep living.

I'll keep growing.

I'll keep becoming the person I want to be.

Not because I'm trying to leave our story behind.

But because loving you taught me that life is too precious not to keep moving forward.

Wherever life takes us, I'll always be grateful that our paths found each other when they did.

You changed me in ways I'll carry for the rest of my life.

The future isn't mine to write alone.

Perhaps this was our only chapter.

Perhaps there are pages still waiting to be written.

I don't know but I no longer feel the need to force an ending before life has finished telling the story.

Until then, I'll simply carry you with gratitude, love and hope for whatever tomorrow brings.

[northern-8]

The Weight You Carried

There is something I've come to understand with time.

Love wasn't the only thing you were carrying.

For a long time, I looked at what we lost and wondered if I'd somehow missed something.

If I'd failed you. If there had been another way.

Time has softened those questions.

Not because they no longer matter but because I began to see your story more clearly.

I know life asked impossible things of you. There were parts of your world that had been written long before we found each other.

Loyalties.

Expectations.

Responsibilities.

A future that so often felt as though it had already been decided.

I could see how deeply you loved the people in your life. I could also see how deeply you loved me.

Neither cancelled out the other.

That's what made it so painful.

I never doubted your love.

Not really.

What I saw was someone trying to honour every part of herself without breaking the people she cared about. And I don't know how anyone carries that without becoming tired.

Sometimes I think people imagine love is supposed to conquer everything.

I wanted to believe that too but life is rarely that simple.

Sometimes love isn't defeated by a lack of feeling. Sometimes it's overwhelmed by the weight people have been carrying long before they ever meet.

I wish the world had been kinder to you.

I wish your heart had never been asked to choose between the people you loved and the life you longed for.

No one should have to make that kind of choice.

If I could change one thing, it wouldn't be who you were. It would be the circumstances that made loving each other so complicated.

For a long time, I held on to the hope that maybe love alone could have changed everything. Now I think love did change something.

It changed us.

You taught me that courage isn't always staying.

Sometimes courage is making a decision that breaks your own heart because you don't know how else to survive it.

I don't pretend to understand every thought that went through your mind.

There are parts of your journey that only ever belonged to you.

But I understand enough.

Enough to know you weren't walking away because love had disappeared.

Enough to know that leaving cost you too.

Enough to know that the tears we cried belonged to the same goodbye.

I don't blame you.

I never really did.

I only wish that life had been gentler with us.

That the road you needed to follow hadn't led away from mine.

Because if there's one thing I've never questioned, it's this:

You loved me.

As deeply and honestly as you knew how.

And I hope you always knew that I loved you the very same way.

[northern-8]

The Love I Didn't Always Know How to Show

There are things I wish I'd told you more often.

Not because they weren't true but because I thought there would always be more time.

I wish I'd told you how proud I was of you.

How deeply I admired your strength.

How I noticed the quiet battles you fought, even when you never spoke about them.

I never doubted your effort.

I saw how hard you were trying.

I saw what loving me asked of you.

I don't think I ever stopped seeing that.

What I struggled with wasn't you.

It was the feeling that the life we dreamed about always seemed just out of reach. There was always another reason. Another obstacle. Another season of waiting.

I understood why.

Or at least, I understood enough to know those reasons weren't excuses. They were real. They belonged to a life that had shaped you long before we found each other.

But understanding something doesn't always make it hurt less.

Sometimes I felt as though I was standing on the edge of the life we imagined, reaching for your hand, while something unseen kept asking you to let go.

That feeling left me frustrated.

Not with you.

With the situation.

With a world that seemed determined to make love harder than it needed to be.

I wish I'd been more patient. I wish I'd been gentler with both of us. I wish I'd found more ways to remind you that, whatever happened, you were never carrying it alone.

I also wish I'd shown my love in more ways. Not because you ever demanded it. You never did.

You deserved to feel cherished in every language love knows how to speak.

You deserved flowers for no reason. More handwritten notes left where you'd least expect them. More dates that I'd planned simply because seeing you smile was reason enough. More adventures. More moments where you never had to wonder just how deeply you were loved.

I've never been much of an organiser. Even planning something small could leave me overwhelmed before I'd even begun.

Life often felt louder inside my head than it looked from the outside.

By the time I found you, I was already carrying more than I knew how to put down.

And then, somewhere along the way, I became burnt out.

Not from loving you.

Never from loving you.

If anything, loving you was one of the few places that still felt like peace.

I was exhausted by everything happening around us. By feeling as though the life we longed for was always waiting on one more thing.

Looking back now, I realise how much of the love I carried for you stayed inside me.

Not because it wasn't there. Because I didn't always know how to turn it into action.

There were so many moments I imagined creating for us. So many little surprises. So many ways I wanted to make you feel adored.

I thought we'd have time.

I thought there would always be another weekend.

Another chance at finally going on that holiday.

Another ordinary Tuesday to tell you all the things I hadn't yet found the words for.

Sometimes I still wonder whether, if I'd loved you more visibly, if I'd been more patient, if I'd found better ways to quiet your fears, things might have unfolded differently.

I know I'll never have the answer to that and perhaps I was never meant to.

What I do know is this.

I loved you well. I also know I could have loved you better.

Both things can be true.

For a long time, I let my regrets become proof that I hadn't been enough.

Now I see them differently.

Regret is often love looking backwards with the wisdom it didn't have at the time.

If loving you taught me anything, it's that love deserves to be spoken.

It deserves to be shown.

It deserves to be celebrated while we still have the chance.

You were never asking for perfection.

You were only ever asking to be loved.

And despite the moments when I felt unwanted too, I never stopped believing that your love for me was real.

I think we were both trying to protect something precious while life kept asking impossible things of us. If I carry one regret, it isn't that I loved you too little. It's that I didn't always show you just how much. There wasn't a single day that you weren't deeply loved.

Not one.

[northern-8]

The Dreams We Carried

One of the hardest things to grieve wasn't only losing you.

It was losing the future I quietly imagined we'd share.

Not the grand milestones.

The little ones.

The ordinary adventures that would have become stories we'd tell for years.

After you left, I realised how many dreams I'd already started writing with you in them.

I wanted to watch the sun rise over Morocco from a hot air balloon, watching the morning light spill across the landscape while you stood beside me.

Not because the view wouldn't have been beautiful on my own.

But because beauty always seemed to multiply when it was shared with you.

I wanted to wander through the Isle of Skye with you.

No real plan.

Just the two of us taking the long way, stopping every few minutes because one of us had spotted something the other simply had to see.

You always made me slow down. You taught me that some places deserved to be wandered rather than rushed through.

When I was invited to beach barbecues, my first thought wasn't about the food or the fire.

It was you.

I imagined us wrapped in blankets as the evening grew colder, listening to the waves, talking until everyone else had gone home.

The days the dolphins came close to the shore, I stood there wishing you could have seen them.

I could picture the look on your face before I even turned my head.

That smile.

Those beautiful brown eyes lighting up.

I wanted that moment to belong to both of us.

There have been so many moments like that.

Beautiful moments.

Quiet moments.

Moments that arrived after you left, but somehow still carried your name.

Without thinking, I still collect them.

A hidden beach.

A winding road.

A sky painted in colours I know you would have loved.

A tiny café tucked away where we'd definitely have stopped.

A view that makes the whole world feel still.

For the briefest second, my heart always says the same thing.

"I can't wait to show her this."

Then reality catches up.

And I remember.

Not every dream gets the chance to become a memory.

But that doesn't stop me from carrying them.

Because somewhere inside me there is still a version of us exploring the world together.

Still making wrong turns that become the best part of the day.

Still chasing another sunset.

Still standing by the sea.

Still finding reasons to fall in love with the world, simply because we were seeing it together.

I think that's what I miss most.

Not the places themselves.

You.

Because no matter how beautiful the view, it was never really the destination I was excited about.

It was always the thought of turning to you and saying,

"Come and look at this."

And knowing you'd already be smiling before you'd even seen it.

[northern-8]

Our Little Life

When I think of us, I don't always think about the big moments.

I think about the life we quietly built in between them.

The ordinary days that somehow became extraordinary simply because they were spent with you.

I think about wandering around garden centres, somehow convincing you that I absolutely needed another plant. You always pretended to question whether I really did.

But you knew.

You always knew when I was sad. Before I'd even found the words for it, you'd suggest we go and wander among the plants. You understood that being surrounded by something growing somehow helped me breathe a little easier.

Those days were never really about buying plants. They were about you finding gentle ways to help me find myself again.

Then we'd stop for hot chocolate, talking about everything and nothing, never realising those ordinary moments would become some of my favourite memories.

The little brass bell you stole still sits by my front door. Every now and then I ring it without thinking. It still makes me smile. A tiny piece of mischief you left behind.

Sometimes love isn't remembered in grand declarations. Sometimes it's remembered in the smallest sound greeting me as I come home.

You always cooked. I was gloriously useless. I don't think either of us ever pretended otherwise.

You'd laugh while I made a mess of the simplest things, and somehow those evenings became some of the happiest memories I'll ever keep.

Music playing. Flour on the worktops. Me stealing food before it reached the plate. You smiling as though you'd expected me to do it all along.

Cosy evenings where nothing extraordinary happened, yet somehow everything felt complete because you were there.

I still think about the sweet kisses we stole beneath the blanket of darkness.

When the world around us was quiet, it felt as though time itself had slowed down just enough to let us exist together.

Those moments never needed an audience. They were enough simply because they were ours.

I still smile when I think about those freezing nights chasing the aurora. Driving for hours with hopeful hearts, wrapped in layer after layer against the cold, while you disappeared inside my Oodie.

Standing beneath a sky that felt endless. Watching the darkness, waiting.

Some nights the lights danced. Other nights they stayed hidden.

It never really mattered.

Because I wasn't chasing the aurora.

I was chasing moments with you.

And somehow, standing in the cold with you beside me always felt warm enough.

I still think about watching fireworks together.

Your face catching flashes of colour as they lit the sky. For some reason, that memory visits me often. Maybe because, like fireworks, some moments are breathtaking precisely because they don't last.

I think about the water fight in my uncle's garden. How quickly two adults became children. Laughing until our stomachs hurt, neither of us caring who won.

I think about all the mornings we woke up before sunrise, convinced that this would finally be the day we'd make it into that hot air balloon. Again and again, the weather had other ideas.

Looking back, I almost laugh at how determined we were. We never got into that balloon. But I'd do every failed attempt all over again if it meant one more morning beside you.

And then there was London.

The Expo.

Somewhere between wandering around and dreaming out loud, we somehow planned an entire future together.

A little café by the sea.

Or maybe a coffee van.

Somewhere people would come for good coffee, homemade cake and conversation, with the sound of the waves never too far away.

I don't think either of us cared what it looked like. We just knew we wanted a life that felt peaceful. A life where we could spend our days by the sea and our evenings watching the sun disappear into the horizon.

Maybe that dream was never really about the café. Maybe it was simply about building a life that looked like us.

When I look back now, I realise those were the moments that made us.

Not because they were extraordinary but because they were ours.

And if I could relive one day, it wouldn't have to be the biggest adventure. It would be one of those beautifully ordinary days.

You beside me.

A hot chocolate in our hands.

Another plant we definitely didn't have room for.

And nowhere else in the world we needed to be.

[northern-8]

The Woman I Fell in Love With

I don't know if I ever told you just how much I admired you.

Not because you were perfect. You weren't. Neither was I.

I loved you because you were wonderfully, beautifully human. You had this way of holding two completely different worlds within you.

There was a lightness about you that could fill an entire room. The way you'd laugh until you could barely catch your breath. The wonderfully goofy side of you that appeared when you felt safe enough to let it. The moments where you'd become almost childlike with excitement, reminding me that joy didn't have to be complicated.

And then there were your quiet moments. The ones I don't think many people ever truly saw. When I'd look into your beautiful brown eyes and catch a sadness that seemed older than either of us. A sadness you rarely spoke about. One you carried with remarkable grace, even when I wished you didn't have to carry it at all.

You had the gentlest hands. I'll never forget your touch. The way your fingertips would absent-mindedly trace little paths across my skin, as though they already knew where they belonged. Sometimes it felt like electricity. So overwhelming that I'd pull away for just a moment. Not because I wanted less of you. Never because I wanted less of you.

But because I didn't know another person could make me feel so much simply by reaching for my hand.

I wish I'd found the words to tell you that then.

I loved how curious you were. At the beginning, you wanted to know everything about me. You asked questions no one else ever had. You listened as though every answer mattered. You made me feel like I was worth discovering. It wasn't just that you wanted to know who I was. You made me want to know myself more deeply too.

When your questions became fewer, I knew something had changed. Not because I believed you loved me any less.

But because I could see you protecting yourself again. I watched the walls return, slowly and quietly. Brick by brick. I kept hoping I'd find a door back to you. I don't know if you could still see me reaching. I wish I'd found another way.

More than anything, though, I hope you know this:

The woman I fell in love with was never only the one who laughed.

She was also the woman who kept going when life asked impossible things of her. The woman who loved with her whole heart, even when that heart was being pulled in different directions. The woman who showed me that kindness can be quiet. That strength can look gentle and that love can exist even when it doesn't know how to stay.

I hope you know how extraordinary you are.

I hope someone tells you often.

Because you always deserved to hear it.

And I don't think I ever said it enough.

[northern-8]

Home

You once told me I felt like home.

I don't think you'll ever know how deeply those words found me. You said them at a time when I didn't even know how to feel safe within myself. Yet somehow, with you, I found a quiet I hadn't known before. Not because life suddenly became easy but because your hand in mine made it feel lighter.

I've turned those words over in my mind more times than you'll ever know.

Wondering if you realised that, somewhere along the way, you became home to me too.

Not a place.

Not four walls.

Not somewhere I belonged because I had to.

But because my heart recognised yours.

Home became the way your eyes softened when you looked at me.

The way you'd reach for my hand without thinking.

The way we'd sit beside the sea, talking about everything, or nothing at all.

The way silence between us never needed filling.

I know we hurt each other. Love doesn't protect people from that. I could tell you every way you hurt me and I could spend even longer wondering about the ways I hurt you.

The hurt you carried so quietly, keeping them tucked close to your chest because that's what you'd always learned to do. I wish I'd known how to carry some of that weight with you. Not because I could have fixed it but because I never wanted you to carry it alone.

I don't think the hardest part of losing you was saying goodbye. I think it was learning that I had to carry the feeling of home by myself. Sometimes I wonder if you ever think about those words.

If you ever remember telling me I felt like home.

Because I never stopped remembering.

And I don't think I ever will.

Not because I couldn't let you go but because some people change the shape of your heart so completely that, wherever life takes you afterwards, a part of you is always walking back towards them.

If you ever wondered what home came to mean for me...

It was never a place.

It was sitting beside you while the waves rolled in.

It was your laugh carrying across the wind.

It was your head resting against my shoulder.

It was knowing that, for a little while, this enormous world had somehow brought two souls together that recognised each other.

And if I'm honest...

A part of me still lives there.

[northern-8]

If You Ever Wonder

My love,

I don't think you ever really leave the people who have loved you deeply. You become part of the way they see the world.

Now every sunset reminds me of you. Every stretch of coastline carries your laugh. Every waterfall takes me back to standing beside you, saying very little because somehow silence never felt empty when it was shared with you.

The Scottish summer evenings still catch me off guard. When the sky refuses to surrender its light, I often find myself wondering if you've stopped to look at it too. I like to think that, every now and then, we're standing beneath the same sky, pausing at the same beauty, even if we no longer stand beside one another.

I don't think love always ends. Sometimes it simply changes shape.

It asks for nothing. It expects nothing.

And yet it quietly becomes part of who we are.

You are no longer part of my everyday life, but you are woven into the way I experience it. The way I notice beauty.

The way I slow down for sunsets.

The way I linger a little longer by the sea.

The way I instinctively turn to share something wonderful, before remembering you're no longer there.

I still catch myself collecting moments for you. A sky painted in colours you would have loved. A hidden beach. A waterfall tucked away at the end of a winding path. A tiny café. A field of wildflowers. The dolphins dancing just off the Scottish coast.

Without thinking, my heart still whispers, "I can't wait to show her this."

Then, just as quietly, it remembers.

Some dreams don't disappear. They simply become memories of futures that never had the chance to unfold.

And perhaps that's why you're still here.

Not beside me.

But within me.

Because love like ours was never something I could simply put down.

It became part of the person I am.

[podencos]

I’m so easily revitalized by small, loving gestures

[sunmystic]

[perriaeyjeve]

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

my 5 year plan is to get back my joy

[b6eyy]

Tell me the long version, i always have time for you