Look into my eyes and watch yourself transform from a lover into a stranger.

It’s not rude… it’s an inevitable truth, as cold and unfamiliar as the last night we spent together.

It’s funny because I never thought that would happen to us.  I never thought the day would come that your hands would feel weird to me, that I wouldn’t recognize you from behind, or that I would confuse your voice with another’s.  It wasn’t supposed to happen to us… but it did.

I’m not going to be sorry, it’s a part of life.

The truth is, we let it happen.  I’m sure married couples go through tough times, and yes, some of them tear their families apart and get divorced because of it.  But what about the ones that don’t?  The ones that survive the turmoil and are better for it after?  Are they better than us?  Are they more mature than us?

Of course not.  

The only difference between them and us is that they recognized the perfection in the imperfections of their love and made the choice to hold onto it.  Once one of you stops trying, there’s nowhere to go but down.  Relationships last, not because they are perfect and you were meant to be together, but because you recognized the obstacles in your way and fought to make them irrelevant.

We didn’t do that.  I think we made a feeble, half-hearted attempt at one point, but with no real commitment binding us together, it was futile.

Sure, we still held hands when we walked together, but each time it became easier to let go.  Eventually, we forgot how to walk side by side.  It felt strange and foreign.  Our steps fell out of sync, our “inside jokes” became a jumbled mass of incoherent words and phrases, and awkward silences stretched endlessly on the road in front of us.

Sometimes, I look back on then and try to figure out exactly when it started, but it’s impossible.  You see, I barely remember what we were like back then, much less when it all fell apart.

… But like I said before, that’s okay.  You can’t fight for everything, and you can’t let yourself be destroyed when you lose at the things you do fight for.  I used to miss you every day.  But now, I’ve forgotten what you smell like, the color of your eyes, and the sound of your laugh.

I still remember you, but I don’t remember me and you.

That’s just life.