sometimes, love looks like leaving

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Lena,

I thought leaving you would be a clean break. But it's not. It's more like tearing a page out of a notebook.. the paper never comes out perfectly straight, there are always bits left stuck in the binding. And I think I'm the bits left behind.

People keep asking me if it was a "hard decision." As if there was a moment when I just sat there with a scale, weighing the pros and cons, and then chose the lighter side. It didn't work like that. It was slow. So slow I didn't even realize it was happening.

Sometimes, love looks like staying. The movies only show that part.. the big speeches, the running after each other in the rain, the I'll fight for us. But sometimes, love looks like folding your clothes into a bag while the sun is till out, checking the fridge for things you bought together and deciding which ones to take, and leaving your copy of the key on the counter without a note because a note would make it worse.

I didn't leave because I didn't love you. I left because I couldn't give you the life you kept telling me you wanted. And you never asked me to be someone else, but I felt you hoping for it. The way you'd pause when you talked about "when we get married," or how you'd linger in the baby aisle at Target even though we were just there for laundry detergent.

I remember that night in the kitchen, you asked if I saw us in ten years. And I said "yeah" without hesitation, but what I saw was different from what you saw. You had us in a house with a dog and maybe two kids and weekend trips to the farmer's market. I had us in an apartment with peeling paint, still laughing at 2AM, still eating cereal for dinner, still choosing each other every day without the rest of it.

And I know you think that means I didn't love you enough. But it's not about enough. It's about the shape of it. Our shapes didn't fit without one of us bending.

So I left before the bending turned into breaking. And I hate that it had to be me. I hate that I'm the one who decided. But sometimes, love looks like leaving before you turn into the villain in someone else's story.

And I think about you more now than I did when we were together. It's stupid, but I still have the habit of buying that specific bread you like, even though I don't eat it. It just sits there until it goes stale. Maybe part of me is still setting the table for you.

-R

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