The Fall

by Tal Bauer

How do you mourn someone who’s standing right in front of you? How do you let go of a love that was only ever yours?

It doesn’t have to be, but wanting not to be something and actually changing—those are different things entirely.

“Sometimes overthinking is our mind’s way of telling us we need to address an issue.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say. “You’re not fine now,” she counters. “And that’s okay. You don’t have to be fine all the time.” No one’s ever given me permission to not be fine before. In hockey, weakness isn’t an option. You play through pain. You shut up and skate.

“Turns out you can’t save somebody who doesn’t want saving.”

If love alone fixed people, none of us would break at all.

I know so, so deeply what it is to wish you could fix what you never broke and that hollow ache of responsibility that isn’t yours to carry, but you shoulder it anyway because the alternative is surrender.