Loving You While Letting Go of the Damage I Caused

Sometimes the hardest truth to face is that you were the reason something beautiful ended. That no matter how deeply you loved someone, your actions or maybe your pain, your patterns, or your timing caused the damage that pushed them away.

And now, they’re gone.

No goodbye.

No second chance.

Just silence. And you’re left holding onto a love that still lives inside you.

I won’t pretend I was perfect. I made mistakes. I didn’t always know how to love the right way. I reacted out of fear, hurt, maybe even pride. I didn’t always listen when I should’ve, and I didn’t always speak when it mattered. There were moments I took their presence for granted. Times I made them feel like they weren’t enough even though they were everything to me.

The thing is, when you’re in it, sometimes you don’t realize what you’re doing. You think you have time. You think they’ll always understand. You think love is enough to keep someone by your side. Until one day, they stop reaching out. They stop fighting. And they leave.

They didn’t give me closure.

But can I really blame them?

When someone’s heart is bruised by you enough times, they eventually learn to protect it even from the one they love. And sometimes the healthiest thing they can do is walk away without explanation, because explaining doesn’t heal what’s already broken too many times.

And yet… I still love them.

Even after everything.

Even knowing I was the one who hurt them.

Even sitting in the mess I made.

That love hasn’t gone anywhere.

There are moments I catch myself wondering how they’re doing. Wondering if they ever think about us. Wondering if they hated me in the end or if part of them still remembers the good, the real, the soft parts that we shared.

The truth is, moving on without closure is hard. But moving on while still loving someone you hurt? That’s a different kind of pain. It forces you to sit with yourself in a way that’s raw and honest. It forces you to grow.

I can’t go back and change what I did.

But I can own it.

I can apologize in the ways my silence never could.

And I can use this pain as a lesson for how I treat people, how I show up, and how I love moving forward.

Closure won’t come from them. Not anymore.

It has to come from within me through accountability, through healing, through growth.

And maybe one day, I’ll find peace in knowing that even if I couldn’t love them the right way then, they taught me how to love better now.

So no, I never stopped caring. I never stopped loving them.

I just finally had to start loving myself enough to let go… and become the version of me that wouldn’t break someone like that again.