I miss him. I miss my ex.
And I know that’s the kind of sentence people think you shouldn’t say out loud, because it makes you look “unhealed,” like you’re doing grief wrong. Like missing someone is proof you’re still stuck. But healing isn’t neat. It doesn’t tie itself into a bow just because other people are uncomfortable with the loose ends.
The painful part is how my mind still reaches for him without asking permission. I catch myself comparing—not always on purpose. Sometimes it just happens. How he did certain things better. How his presence was different. How familiar he was. How my body knew him like a habit I haven’t fully broken. I notice what’s missing before I notice what’s new. I hate that I do it. And then I hate myself for hating it, because it’s not even about wanting him back. It’s about how love carves grooves into you, and your brain keeps tracing them long after you’ve decided you’re done.
There’s another truth I don’t like admitting: when I picture him with someone else, something in me still claims him. Like he’s mine. Like he isn’t for the taking. Like the life we built gave me some kind of permanent right. But it didn’t. That’s not how this works. The relationship ended, and the world kept turning. He’s his own person now. I know that. I understand it logically. It just hasn’t fully landed in the part of me that still remembers what it was like to be chosen by him.
So I stay busy. I stack my days with people and noise and movement. I go places. I make plans. I keep momentum, because slowing down is when the quiet gets loud. Quiet is when my mind starts digging. Quiet is when the darker thoughts crawl up from wherever I’ve been shoving them, and suddenly I’m back in it—missing him, resenting him, longing for what we had, grieving what we were supposed to be, all at the same time.
I know this won’t last forever. I know there will be a day when the memories don’t have sharp edges. I know there will be a version of me that can think of him without unraveling. I know better days are coming.
I just also know I’m not there yet.
And maybe that’s what moving forward actually looks like right now: telling the truth without dressing it up. Missing him, and still choosing distance. Missing him, and still refusing to go back. Missing him, and still building a life that doesn’t require him to exist for me to survive.
It’s not clean. It’s not pretty.
But it’s real.