Sometimes the hardest thing to let go of wasn’t the person. It was the fantasy. The version of them I kept hoping would appear. The future I kept building in my mind. The apology, the growth, the consistency, the love I thought was just one more chance away.

I wasn’t only attached to who they were. I was attached to who I believed they could be. And that kind of grief is complicated, because no one sees you mourning something that never fully existed.

But once I stopped clinging to potential, I could finally see reality. I saw how much of me had been waiting. How much of me had been shrinking. How much of me had confused hope with love.

Letting go of the fantasy hurt. But holding onto it was hurting me more.

So I released the illusion. And in its place, I found something real.

Myself. 💛