Grieving someone still here

It’s a strange kind of grief.

The kind where nothing final has happened…

no funeral, no goodbye,

no slammed doors or closed chapters.

She’s just not mine anymore.

Jessica still exists in the world.

She still smiles the same way, I’m sure.

Probably still makes people feel seen,

still speaks softly when she’s upset,

still tries to make the world a little lighter.

And yet, I’m mourning her.

Not because she’s gone…but because we are.

Because what we had

lives now only in memory,

not in motion.

I miss the girl I didn’t fight hard enough to keep.

I miss the version of me I was supposed to grow into beside her.

I grieve the future we almost had—the laughs,

the house discussions,

the kids who’d maybe get her kindness and my stubbornness.

Sometimes I wonder if I gave up

because I believed I wasn’t enough for her.

Maybe I wasn’t.

Maybe I let fear of not measuring up

keep me from becoming the man she needed.

Maybe I didn’t know how to love someone so steady, so kind,

so full of potential

without feeling like I was holding her back.

So instead of rising to meet her where she was…

I stayed stuck.

And when you stay stuck long enough,

you start convincing yourself she deserves better.

And then…

you stop trying at all.

She didn’t leave in anger.

She just faded from the role she used to play in my life.

And now, she sends concert invites to my mom

while I sit here

trying to act like that doesn’t punch me in the chest.

I don’t want her to be gone.

But I also don’t want to hold her back again.

That’s the catch.

Grieving her feels like love and guilt braided together.

Like missing someone

but knowing you had your shot…

and you didn’t show up.

She’s still around.

Still kind. Still thoughtful.

But she’s not mine.

And maybe she never really was…

not the way she should’ve been.

Not the way someone like her deserves.

So this grief…it’s quiet.

It doesn’t ask for attention.

It just sits in the backseat of my life,

showing up at random songs,

old photos,

and stories my mom brings up

without knowing they sting.

And maybe that’s okay.

Maybe grieving someone who’s still alive

is proof that you loved them in a real way.

Not perfectly,

but deeply enough

to still feel the shape of what you lost

every now and then.