SOFTNESS / RECONNECTION

Letter 030 NEW

If You Texted Me Tonight, I’d Answer.

I wish I could tell you I’d ignore it.

That after everything I’ve learned about boundaries and healing and not reopening things just because I’m lonely, your name could appear on my phone and I’d calmly turn it facedown.

That would make this a much more impressive letter.

And a much less honest one.

If you texted me tonight, I’d answer.

Not everyone.

I need to say that first.

There are people whose names could light up my screen and I would feel absolutely no obligation to respond. There are endings I fought too hard for to negotiate with again.

But there are also people I have learned to live without who I never actually stopped caring about.

Some people lose access to your life before they lose their place in it.

I think that is what makes this complicated.

I can have boundaries and still wonder how you are.

I can know why something ended and still wish parts of it hadn’t.

I can build a life that no longer includes you and still know exactly what your name on my screen would do to me.

Maybe answering would scare me.

Maybe I’d stare at the notification first.

Maybe I’d send it to a friend and ask, What am I supposed to do with this?

But eventually?

I’d answer.

And I don’t think admitting that erases anything I’ve learned.

Healing cannot only count when I become completely indifferent.

Sometimes healing is knowing I still care and trusting myself enough to decide what happens next.

Because answering you would not automatically mean forgiving everything.

It would not mean pretending nothing happened.

It would not mean handing you the same access you used to have.

An answer is not a reunion.

A conversation is not a promise.

Curiosity is not consent to repeat the past.

Maybe that’s what I know now that I didn’t know before.

I don’t have to protect myself by pretending I feel nothing.

I can admit there are people I still love in some form.

People I miss.

People I would forgive.

People I would want to hear from.

And I can still decide, after hearing what they have to say, whether they belong in the life I have now.

So no, I’m not waiting for your text.

My life isn’t sitting still until you decide to come back.

But if my phone lit up tonight and it was you?

I know myself well enough now to stop pretending.

I’d answer.

What happened after that would depend on what you had to say.

— Me