The Weight of Almost

0:00 Hi, I told you I'd be back when you had something to actually talk about. And I suppose you do. I don't know what time it is where you are. Maybe you're listening to this on your way to work, maybe lying in bed pretending you're going to sleep. Maybe it's 2:00 in the morning and you probably shouldn't be listening to someone talk about feelings right now. But you're here, so let's talk. Last time we spoke, we talked about unrequited love, about loving someone who never quite left you back, about all the things we imagine when someone leaves us with an unfinished story.

0:37 And I think maybe that's why I want to start today with an unfinished story, because I've been thinking about something. I don't think the hardest thing to lose is always a person. Sometimes it's the possibility of who you could have been with them. And that's a strange thing to grieve because how do you mourn a life you never lived? How do you miss Memo, which you never made? How do you say goodbye to something that never actually began? Maybe that's what it almost actually is. It's a story that never became a story, but somehow we still remember every chapter.

1:12 And maybe that's a strange thing about almost There isn't really anything to bury. No relationship to mourn, no universe of it for remember, no for the crafts of the two of you together. No old messages that say this is where we ended. This is just possibility. And possibility is difficult to bury because as long as something is possible, some small part of you keeps believing that might still happen. You start remembering things differently. That conversation from six months ago? Maybe it meant more than you thought.

1:44 The look they gave you. Maybe you weren't imagining it the night they stayed up talking to you. Maybe they felt something true, and suddenly the past becomes a collection of clues you no longer remember when, what happened. You're investigating it, trying to find evidence for a love story that may have only existed in your head. And I think we've all done that. Taking one sentence and giving it an entire meaning. Taking one moment and build a future around it. Because when you want something badly enough, your mind becomes incredibly good at filling in the blanks.

2:21 You don't need them to say I want you, you just need them to say something that sounds close enough. And that's what almost becomes dangerous. Because Almost doesn't ask you to move on. It asks you to wait just a little longer until they're ready. Until the timing is better, until they realized what you realized. Until maybe becomes finally. And sometimes you wait so long you don't even realize you're waiting anymore. You've just built a life around the possibility. You check your phone, you reread old conversations, you notice when they're online, you wonder who they're talking to.

2:58 You wonder if they think about you too. And you tell yourself you're not waiting, you're just curious. But you know, you always know. There is a difference between remembering someone and keeping a place for them. And sometimes you keep that place empty for far too long. I think that's what that's what makes him almost so difficult to leave. There was never a moment where you could say this is over. There was no ending. Just less. Less talking, less seeing each other, less hope. Until one day, you realise you're holding on to something that hasn't existed for a very long time.

3:37 And maybe that's when you finally understand. You weren't waiting for them anymore. You were waiting for the version of the story you had written in your head. The one where they eventually come back. The one where they finally understood. The one over where all those little moments suddenly made sense. The one where you could look at them and say, see, I knew it, but. But life doesn't always give us that ending. Sometimes the person doesn't come back. Sometimes they fall in love with someone else.

4:08 Sometimes they move away. Sometimes nothing traumatic happens at all. They just keep living and so do you. And that's probably the most painful kind of ending, when nobody did anything wrong, when nobody betrayed anyone. And there isn't a villain to hate, just two people who could have been something but wouldn't. And I think that's when we start asking ourselves the questions we probably shouldn't. Was I not enough? Was I too late that I misunderstand everything? Was there something I could have done?

4:42 Could I have said the right thing? Could I have stayed? Could I have food harder? Could I have loved them differently? But sometimes there isn't a better version of what you could have done. Sometimes you did what you knew hard to do with the heart you had at that time. And maybe they did too. Maybe the timing was wrong. Maybe the feelings weren't equal. Maybe you were meant to meet but not meant to stay. I know that's a difficult thing to accept because we'd rather believe there was a mistake, a missed opportunity, something could have fixed.

5:16 Because if there was a mistake, then there is something to covet. But what do you do when nothing was spoken? What do you do when the story was simply wasn't yours? Maybe you crave it. Maybe you give yourself permission to admit that it mattered, even if it never became a relationship. Even if nobody else understood why it hurt. You don't have to minimize something just because it never had an A. You don't have to tell yourself it wasn't real. It was real to you. The feelings were real, the hope was real, the memories were real.

5:50 But real doesn't always mean forever, and I think that's something we learned far too late. Some people can be real and still be temporary. Some moments can be beautiful and still be unfinished. Some stories can mean everything to you and still end without a proper ending. Maybe that's OK. Maybe not every almost needs to become something. Maybe some some almost are simply there to remind us that we are capable of wanting, of hoping, of imagining, of loving. And maybe one day you'll stop asking what would have happened.

6:26 Not because you find the answer, but because you finally realized you don't need one. Because there is a life waiting for you that doesn't require you to keep looking backwards. And maybe the person you were waiting for was never supposed to be the person who completed the story. Maybe there was just the person who told you that you wanted one. And that's the strange thing about almost. Sometimes it doesn't end with getting what you wanted. Sometimes it ends with realizing you deserve something.

6:57 You don't have to almost have one more thing. Take care of your heart. Almost certainly meet you here again when it's something we actually need to talk about. Until then, good morning, good evening and good night.