There was a girl I loved, once.
Her name is irrelevant. So are her feelings. I do not say this to be cruel, but I say it because she has made the choice to remove herself from my life.
It wasn’t always this way. We met on this site. Messages and follows exchanged, tagging in posts, it was good fun. Then came texting, and Facebook friends. Steam friend codes and games played. Eventually, I fell in love. Not a romantic love, not at first. But a platonic appreciation and affection. I genuinely cared for her. One of the very few people I could ask about their day and actually give a shit about.
Things started to change. I started to feel different feelings towards her. The time up until now was just thinking we were best friends, two sides of the same side of a coin. I began feeling like I wanted to care for her, protect her, give her everything I could to make her happy. I wanted to be her best friend, but also her lover. Maybe I was for a time. We danced back and forth across the line of friends and partners.
Every so often she would fall away from me. It was due to depression and anxiety, or stress from her day-to-day life. Sometimes it would be for a week, sometimes a month. A few times it was for several months. Now it’s been a year since she’s received a text message I sent, or had her phone turned on. Over the years, she slowly reduced her digital footprint on social media. She called it too much, and I agreed. But I realized her phone number was the only link I had to her for a long time. Now that is gone.
We never met in person. We had Skype calls, and called each other on the phone regularly. But I never touched her, never held her hand or kissed her. I let fear poison the relationship. I used the convenient excuse of distance as to why we never ended up together. I could have had a shot at a relationship with her, but I never committed.
I don’t say this to lament over what choices I made after her. I think I have done the best with the circumstances I have had. I don’t mean to demean or lessen my current partner and my relationship. But she was my penultimate love. I see that now.
Given how our story played out, I do not blame her for what happened at all. Maybe I could or should. But the part that hurts the most is that I didn’t get any closure. One day the earth swallowed her up and that was it. No awkward scrolling on social media to see her announce she was in a relationship or engaged or had a child on the way. Just nothing.
I hope she’s okay. Maybe she figured life out and is doing better. Maybe she isn’t alive anymore.