"I still have his T-shirt"
I still have his T-shirt...
Once, it smelled like him. I would hold it close and breathe in what was left of those hours we shared.
Time did what time always does. The scent faded. Laundry, air, days passing by... eventually, the smell disappeared.
But memories don't work the same way fabric does.
The scent may be gone, yet the shirt still holds something else. It still holds him. His presence.
There's a quiet melancholy in realizing that a smell can disappear while a memory refuses to.
I don't know why, but every time I touch that T-shirt, it feels like stepping into a theatre of memories. The curtains rise, and suddenly every moment we shared begins to replay before my eyes .. so vivid, so alive, that for a fleeting second, it feels as though none of it ever ended.
But there is something cruel about it too.
Because the memories don't just bring him back. They bring back the longing. The ache of wanting that touch again. The comfort of being held by him. The quiet certainty of his arms around me, as if the rest of the world could simply disappear.
For a moment, memory makes it all feel possible again.
And then reality returns.
The other day, while we were on a call, he told me something that felt both beautiful and heartbreaking. He said that as soon as we start talking, he imagines pulling me into a hug.
And somehow, for a little while, it feels real.
Time and distance loosen their grip. I can almost feel the warmth of his embrace, as if he isn't miles away at all.
But then the call ends.
And just like that, the feeling disappears.
Sometimes it feels like we're fighting against time, distance, and circumstances—forces determined to keep us apart.
There are moments when I want to be angry. To fight back. To demand that life .. bring him back to me here and right now ..
But who do you fight when the enemy is fate?
How do you argue with distance?
How do you reason with timing?
And yet, the best part is this:
I still have him.
Maybe not in my arms, but in my days.
We fall in love with each other every day.
We long for one another every day.
Across distance, across time, across all the things that stand between us, our hearts still find their way back home.
And for now, that is enough.
So for now, I am going to hold on to his T-shirt.
Not because it still smells like him.
Not because it can bring him back to me.
But because it reminds me that what we shared was real.
He and I are real.
On difficult days, I hold it close and tell myself that everything is going to be okay. That this distance is not forever. That these circumstances are not forever. That love is sometimes asked to wait.
Maybe that is what love truly is “patience”.
Because it is during the hardest times that love is tested. Not when two people are together and everything is easy, but when time, distance, and fate place them on opposite sides of the world and ask them to keep believing anyway.
So I will wait.
I will be patient.
Because the reward will be him. His love...
And until then, I will hold on to his T-shirt, to the theatre of memories it carries, and to the quiet hope that one day, I won't have to imagine his embrace anymore.
Posted May 29, 2026, 7:54 PM UTC