In Another Life, I Would’ve Chosen You Sooner

A love letter to the version of me who wasn’t ready.

I wanted it to be you.

God, I still want it to be you.

Some days I catch myself cracking the door open just a little like maybe hope will take the hint and leave. But it never does. Hope is stubborn like that. It survives the ending long after the story’s already closed.

And look… the possibility?

Yeah. It’s gone.

I know it. You know it.

The whole universe probably knows it by now.

You’d say it was timing, or fate, or “just not meant to be,” but let me be honest for once instead of hiding behind poetry:

It wasn’t destiny.

It wasn’t you.

It was me.

I ruined it.

And what haunts me isn’t the breakup it’s the tiny choices that added up to losing you. The way I’d stare at your name on my phone and talk myself out of calling. How I’d type out paragraphs I never sent, then convince myself you wouldn’t want me anyway. So I stalled. And stalled. And stalled. Until stalling was the only thing I was good at.

I wish I could go back and tell the old me that love isn’t something you earn by being perfect. You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to impress. You just have to show up… honest.

That’s all the right person ever needed.

Now look at me making dinner for one, replaying the “what ifs” like songs that never leave the playlist. Trying to forgive the version of me who chose comfort over the chance of something real. Something complete.