Yes, you were. Did you forget?
Some people enter your life and transform everything. It's as if they've painted the sky with new colors, as if the world previously existed in shades of gray, but now it's finally alive.
You probably thought of someone. Someone who understood you in a way that no one else did. Someone with whom it was just right. Someone with whom you felt for the first time like there was no need for masks.
We often love such people.
We love the way they drink their coffee. We love the sound of their laughter, that furrowed brow as they try to understand something. We love them in those moments when the world slows down, when the morning light streams through the window and you're sure for a second that this will last forever.
But sometimes - sometimes these people don't stay
Maybe because there are too many of them. Maybe because you are too many. Maybe because a passion of this magnitude simply cannot survive. It doesn't fall apart in one moment. It slowly fades away.
We love them in small moments. And we lose them in the same way.
And when the final blow comes – when it's really over – you feel like you're going to be pulled under. But when that happens, when love leaves, you need to know one thing: You were someone before.
Yes, you were. Don't you remember?
You laughed before you sat at that table together, laughing until you cried. You mattered before they told you how much you meant to them. You had value before they first turned to you for support. You loved before. You were a friend before. You were a dreamer before.
You were alive before.
You breathed before you knew their name. You existed without their presence. Life did not begin with them – and it will not end with them.
You're still someone. This isn't the end of you.
People come and go. And just because they're gone doesn't mean they took a part of you. They can't take away who you are.
Love, though fleeting, was true. And just because it didn't last doesn't mean it wasn't important.
But now?
Now is the time to remember who you were before they came along. What inspired you? What drove you? What was it that once lit a spark inside you before they ever laid eyes on you?
You are not just their story. You are your own.
So move on. Look back, but don't stop there. Remember what you were given - and more importantly, remember what you had before.
You were someone before them. Never forget that.
