journal prompt

i’ve realized the hardest part about moving on isn’t actually moving on. it’s the random tuesday at 1:43 a.m. when your brain decides today’s the perfect day to reopen a chapter you haven’t thought about in weeks. i think people assume healing is linear. like one day you wake up and suddenly nothing hurts anymore. but sometimes it’s quiet. almost too quiet. and that’s when the thoughts get loud.

there are nights when i don’t even miss a person. i just miss having someone to exist with. someone i’d text without thinking twice. someone i’d tell about the dumbest thing that happened during my day. someone whose silence never felt awkward. it’s strange how loneliness isn’t always about being alone.

sometimes it’s about knowing the one person you want to talk to is seven seas away… or maybe even further than that. not just because of distance, but because life happened.

i don’t even know if they’ll ever text me back. or if one day my phone will randomly light up with their name. maybe the next time they call, it’ll only be because they need me. maybe they won’t call at all. i don’t know. and i hate that, every now and then, i still catch myself wondering. and no, i’m not waiting for anyone.

i’m just saying some habits don’t leave as easily as people do. there are days when life feels so full that i forget all of this ever existed. then there are evenings when the sun goes down, everything gets a little quieter, and somehow my mind starts wandering to places i’ve promised myself i wouldn’t revisit.

i don’t think i miss what we had.

i think i miss the comfort of believing there would always be someone at the other end of the conversation. maybe that’s why the end of the day feels different. everyone’s asleep. the world’s quieter. and somehow that’s exactly when you wish someone was beside you, even if it’s just to sit there in silence.

i guess that’s what i’ve been grieving all along.

not the person. the feeling of having someone who made the world feel a little less heavy.

maybe one day these thoughts will stop showing up uninvited. until then,

i’ll just let them sit here instead of letting them live rent-free in my head..

-Khizra