Love, Hate, & Lay’s

I keep writing about healing.

About growth.

About letting go.

About peace.

About finding the lesson.

And most days, I mean every word.

But today I’m angry.

Life would be easier if I hated you.

I could package this whole thing into a neat little story.

You’d be the villain.
I’d be the victim.

The end.

But that’s not what happened.

Because I loved you.

Not the version I hoped you’d become.

Not the version I invented in my head.

You.

The real you.

The stubborn you.
The funny you.
The difficult you.
The one who knew exactly where to find me when the world got loud.

You knew what it cost me to let you stay.

You knew how hard it was for me to trust.

You knew how long it took me to take off the armor.

And along the way, I assumed that mattered.

I assumed that if the day ever came when you stopped loving me, stopped choosing me, stopped wanting this, there would at least be enough respect left to tell the truth.

Enough kindness left to honor what we were.

Enough courage left to stand in the wreckage with me.

Instead, I got silence.

Questions.

And the kind of hurt that makes you question things you once knew with certainty.

The kind that leaves you wondering how someone who knew you that well could become a stranger.

The person who knew me best became the person I understand the least.

And that’s the cruelest part.

I don’t hate you.

God knows I’ve tried.

It would be easier.

I’ve tried to make sense of it.

I’ve tried to understand it.

I’ve tried to find the lesson.

And every time I start making progress, a memory walks in and ruins it.

Like that time I stopped everything for a snack break.

Right in the middle of a moment that was supposed to be passionate and serious, I grabbed a bag of Lay’s potato chips because that’s who I am.

And instead of making me feel ridiculous, you looked at me like I was magic.

Like being completely myself was your favorite thing about me.

And there it is.

The problem.

Because I know that moment was real.

I lived inside it.

So every time I try to turn you into a villain, that memory shows up and ruins everything.

And suddenly I’m not angry.

I’m hurt.

Not because you left.

But because there was a time I felt more seen, more loved, more beautiful, and more comfortable than I ever had before.

And I still don’t know what to do with that.

Still carrying a love I never expected to outlive the relationship.

And maybe that’s what makes me so angry.

Not that I loved you.

That I still can’t make myself regret it.

Peanut.