If this is healing, I don't want it.

It's been 100 days of silence. Of course, I've reached out once each month to let you know I'm still here. Hoping. It's always ended in disappointment. At this point, I know my number was probably blocked a long time ago.

We knew each other for less than a year. And there was no big explosive blowout or even a disagreement. It was just as simple as you not replying one day. And then that one day turned into this. Months.

I'm doing fine. Good, even. In my career I'm reviving praise. I'm working in my field, finally. And I'm damn good at it. They put my report on a giant screen for our whole division to see. It was the first report I ever did there. And now it's going to a board meeting, too. Financially, I'm in the safest space I've been. I'm taking classes again. Music. And writers workshops. And I'm investing back in my hobbies. Making art again. I started making art again because we met-- did you know that? I haven't stopped, even in your absence. I'm seeing my friends again, now that I'm no longer in survival mode. Going to cafes and movies and record shops.

Life is beautiful and I deserve to be a part of it. You told me that, once. I see it now. I know it is beautiful. But without you here? It's all in grayscale. I can see the scenery and the moving pieces, the cars driving down the road , the laughter of friends sitting at the bar together, the way rain falls on my window and trickles down gently as if to say "the drought is over." And maybe it is. But without you? I'll always be parched. You gave color to a world that I believed wasn't worth living in. You taught me to believe that I can, that I'm capable of doing the hard thing. The first thing I ever wrote about you was the line: "Good people still exist." And you do. Just not with me. And that's the part that's left an incurable ache in my chest. I feel it every day. Maybe you're not the first thing I think of in the morning anymore. But you're always the last thing before I go to bed, and the thing I dream about.

Genuinely, I hadn't had dreams I remembered since I was in high school. But now when I wake up, I journal our meetings from my dreams. I don't want to lose those, too. I can't. I wish you'd come back. I wish for it when I'm driving to work in the morning, when I'm having my afternoon coffee, when I'm painting.

Fall was your favorite season. It used to be mine, too. But now all I can think of is you. The autumn leaves remind me of falling like I fell in love with you. And I don't think I'll be able to handle it when I start to see them browning along the walkways this season. Without any explanation, you pulled the greatest disappearing act of all time. It hurts. You exist only four streetlights down the road from me, and somehow, I never see you. I know I'll never see you again. And it hurts. I don't think it will ever stop hurting.

I used to say: "I'm never drowning when I'm with you." But without you? I am. And truly, I can't think of a better way to go.

You hated that I used to call you my sunshine. Any time I said anything too real, too feeling, too ardently romantic, you'd flinch away. But it's true. You'll always be my sunshine. You were the still point of my turning world. Now everything keeps moving, and I can't keep up. Now everything is passing, and I am forced to move along with it. But I don't want to.

Moving means forgetting what you look like-- what you smelled like- what you sounded like.

I ask myself every night before I go to bed-- what did he sound like when he was making fun of me in that sly, playful way? What did he sound like before ending our daily phone call? What did he sound like when he was telling me he trusted me, or that I was doing a good job? What did it sound like when he told me he loved me?

I replay the memory of your voice every night. I can't cope with the fact that it's fading. I don't know what to do. But if I'm ever forced to let go of these memories, rest assured, they'll have claw marks running down the side.

I miss you, sunshine. I always will.