Check out the song “Down in the Valley” below:
Notes
4:12 AM
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how easy it is to turn people into villains once a relationship falls apart. Maybe we do it because it hurts less that way. If somebody was secretly awful the whole time, then at least the story makes sense. At least there’s something clean to hold onto. But I don’t think most relationships fail because one person is entirely good and the other is entirely bad. I think most of them fail because two people collide at the wrong speed carrying wounds they don’t fully understand yet.
I cared about someone deeply. I still care about her, honestly, even though I know things can never go back to what they were. There were moments between us that felt very real to me. We said things to each other that people do not usually say casually. We cried together. We talked about the future. We made each other feel less alone for a little while. I don’t regret those moments, and I’m not going to pretend they were fake just because the ending became painful.
At the same time, I think I moved too fast emotionally. I have a tendency to do that when I care about somebody. Part of it is just who I am, but part of it comes from living with chronic illness for a long time. When your body reminds you every day that life is fragile, you stop approaching relationships casually. You stop feeling like there’s unlimited time to slowly circle around your feelings for six months pretending you don’t have them. When I love somebody, I move toward them. That intensity can feel good in the beginning, but I am starting to understand how it can also overwhelm somebody who is already carrying fear and instability from other parts of their life.
I think both of us were reacting to ghosts that had nothing to do with each other.
I know what it feels like to be lonely enough that connection starts feeling urgent. I think she knows what it feels like to be hurt badly enough that connection starts feeling dangerous. Those two things are not a good combination. One person keeps moving closer while the other person keeps pulling away, then feeling guilty for pulling away, then moving close again, then panicking again. After a while, nobody knows what the relationship even is anymore. It just becomes confusion mixed with attachment.
What makes it harder is that none of it felt fake to me. I think that’s the part people misunderstand when they say things like, “Just move on,” or, “Clearly it wasn’t real.”
No, it was real. That’s exactly why it hurts.
I remember the first time we said we loved each other face to face. We both had tears in our eyes. You cannot fake something like that. At least not convincingly enough to fool me in that moment. I still believe she meant it when she said it.
But meaning something in a moment and sustaining it over time are two different things entirely.
I think people underestimate how much fear changes relationships. Somebody can love you and still become terrified of what loving you means. They can want closeness while also wanting escape routes. They can say they want you in their life forever while panicking when the relationship starts becoming emotionally real in practical ways. I do not say that judgmentally. I think a lot of us are contradictory once we get emotionally cornered enough.
There were times when I felt confused by the mixed signals, and if I’m being honest, there were times I became angry about them too. Not screaming angry. More like emotionally exhausted. Somebody would tell me I mattered deeply to them, then suddenly recoil from intimacy or closeness in a way that made me feel like I had misunderstood everything. I kept trying to reconcile those two versions of reality in my head. Eventually I realized there probably was no way to reconcile them cleanly because both versions were real at different times.
I also think I misunderstood some of her fear as rejection when it may have actually been panic. That realization has been difficult for me because my instinct was always to interpret emotional distance personally. If somebody pulled away, I assumed I had done something wrong or that their feelings had changed completely. But now I think some people pull away because they are overwhelmed by the intensity of what they feel, not because they feel nothing.
That does not mean the relationship would have worked if we had just tried harder. I actually think the opposite. I think we reached a point where the emotional instability itself became unsustainable. Every conversation started carrying too much weight. Every misunderstanding became symbolic of something larger. Every emotional reaction triggered old fears in both directions. That is not a foundation you can build a peaceful life on.
And despite all of this, I do not hate her.
That surprises some people. They expect heartbreak to harden into bitterness eventually. Maybe sometimes it does. But I still see somebody who has been through a lot emotionally. I still see somebody trying to protect herself, even when I think she protected herself in ways that hurt me. I still see somebody who deserves love and stability and safety. I just no longer think I am the person who can give those things to her without both of us eventually drowning in the process.
I have made mistakes too. I know I have. I said things emotionally that I wish I had handled with more patience. I let frustration get ahead of wisdom sometimes. But I also know my intentions were never cruel. I never saw her as disposable. I never saw her as a burden. If anything, part of the problem was that I cared too much and moved too quickly because of it.
I think what I have finally arrived at is something much sadder and much simpler than blame. I think two people can love each other sincerely and still be completely wrong for each other in practice. Not because either one is evil. Not because the relationship was fake. Just because timing, fear, trauma, pacing, and emotional reality do not always line up neatly with love itself.
I wish her well. I really do. From the bottom of a heart that is still mending, I love her as the person she is and the person she is becoming. She is fucking brilliant. A star kissing the horizon now, but soon she will fill the sky.
And I hope someday both of us find a kind of peace that does not feel like it is constantly slipping through our hands.
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