At one point, it was all perfect, or at least, it felt like it in the kind of way you don’t question. The kind of perfect you don’t stop to analyze because you’re too busy living inside of it. I remember how easily the idea of forever would slip into my mind, like it belonged there, like it wasn’t some far-off concept but something that was already quietly unfolding in front of me.
The coffee tasted better back then, and I know it wasn’t actually the coffee, but everything around it. Mornings felt softer, slower, like time wasn’t something I had to keep up with. The trips didn’t feel fleeting, and the memories didn’t feel temporary. They just existed without pressure, without the looming thought that one day I might have to look back on them instead of live in them. There was no second guessing, no wondering if it was right, no questioning if it would last. It just was. It was everything. It was my everything.
And then, somehow, it wasn’t.
That’s the part I still try to wrap my head around, how something that felt so steady, so certain, so permanent, could quietly become something that no longer exists in the same way. I catch myself searching for a reason, something tangible I can hold onto to explain it, because there has to be a reason, right? That’s what I tell myself, at least. There has to be something that makes sense of how something so right could end up not working out, because if there isn’t, then what does that say about all the moments that felt so sure?
Everything I knew, everything I loved, everything that felt constant, just slowly slipped into something unfamiliar. Not gone in a dramatic, all-at-once way, but gone in the kind of way where you don’t realize it’s changing until you’re already standing in something completely different. And maybe that’s what makes it so hard. Not just losing it, but knowing it will never exist in that exact way again. That version of it, that version of me, that version of us, only lives in memory now.
But even with all of that, I can’t ignore the part that stays with me. The part that knows, without a doubt, that for a moment in time, I was inside something real. Something that didn’t feel fragile or uncertain or fleeting, but whole. I didn’t have to imagine what forever might feel like, and I didn’t have to hope for it. I was there, even if only briefly.
I could almost taste it.
And maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s what I carry with me now, not the ending, not the unraveling, but the knowing that a feeling like that exists. That forever isn’t just something people talk about to comfort themselves, but something you can actually feel when you’re in it. And even if I never experience that exact version again, I was close enough to recognize it, close enough to believe in it, and close enough to trust that if it ever finds me again, I’ll know.
Love,
Emi Sue
Leave a Reply