Call It What You Want

by Alissa DeRogatis

No, we never dated. He’s not an ex-boyfriend. He’s an ex-almost. Maybe that’s all we’d ever be—an incomplete sentence or a book that someone put down halfway through and never picked back up, finished without an ending.

I knew I was past tipsy by the way I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

Too relateable.

you need to stop losing your mind over someone who doesn’t mind losing you.”

“There’s no use in being upset over the unknown.

“You’re gonna hate to hear this, Sloane, but we’re so young. Your person is out there, and they’re going to be your person for the rest of your life. You won’t have to worry about this one-foot-in, one-foot-out situation with them. You don’t want someone who comes back; you want someone who never leaves.”

That night I realized that losing someone doesn’t necessarily mean losing. Every time someone walks out of your life, someone new eventually walks into it. Losing someone means you’ll eventually gain someone even better.

Somewhere along the line of loving you and then hating you and then missing you and then hating you again, I realized that you did all you could. We weren’t made for each other, no matter how much I tried to convince myself we were.

thought I wasn’t worthy of love, and I feel so sorry for the version of myself that believed otherwise. I deserved a title. I deserved a label. I deserved honesty. I deserved clarity. I know that now.

Sometimes, you really do end up in the same place at the same time as someone you don’t want to see by chance. And there are two ways to handle it. Option one: convince yourself this was on purpose and try to figure out said purpose. Option two: realize it was a coincidence and continue with your life.

You can’t beg someone to love you, as much as I wish you can, you can’t. You shouldn’t have to convince someone that you’re good enough or you’re worth it. That’s something I’m still learning.

It still hurts. Losing him and missing him still hurts, but in a different way than it did the other times. It doesn’t feel like an earth-shattering heartbreak, but a more subtle lingering pain.

Losing Ethan made me realize that I wasn’t mourning the memories of him. I mourned the idea of him that I created. I mourned the future I built in my head using our best moments. I mourned the potential I saw in him, and the life that I saw for us.