wherever the sun finds you
in english, we say “no regrets.”
in poetry, we say:
despite the ending,
i would still choose the softness.
i would still choose the late night conversations,
the laughter that made my chest ache,
the quiet hope that lived inside me every time your name lit up my phone.
i would still choose caring for you.
i cared for you in the quiet ways.
not in ways that demanded to be seen.
not in ways that kept score.
not in ways that asked for applause after every act of tenderness.
i cared for you the way some people tend gardens they never speak about.
patiently.
consistently.
hoping sunlight would find its way there eventually.
i cared about whether you ate.
whether you slept enough.
whether your shoulders loosened after a hard day.
whether there was softness waiting for you somewhere in the middle of your chaos.
and maybe you never fully understood the weight of that.
because care is such a deceptively small word.
people think care means liking someone.
being fond of them.
wanting them around.
but i think care is much holier than that.
i think care is rearranging your inner world to make room for another person’s humanity.
it is memorizing the shape of their exhaustion.
it is noticing the tiny shifts in their voice before they even admit something is wrong.
it is wanting peace for them even after they stop offering you any of your own.
i cared for you that way.
even at the end.
even when things became quiet in all the wrong places.
even when i could feel myself reaching toward someone already drifting out to sea.
and i know now there were moments where i was carrying meaning in my hands while you held it more loosely.
that hurts.
i will not lie and pretend it doesn’t.
but i also refuse to make myself smaller just because someone else could not meet me there.
because i am proud of the way i cared.
i am proud that i remained gentle in a world that constantly rewards detachment.
proud that i still know how to show up honestly.
proud that i never made you beg for clarity about where you stood with me while i had it to give.
you once felt safe to me.
that is not something i hand out carelessly.
and maybe that is why this ache lingers the way it does.
because losing someone is one thing.
realizing you built a home inside someone who was only passing through is another.
still,
i do not regret you.
i do not regret the warmth.
or the laughter.
or the tenderness that existed before things unraveled.
i think some people enter our lives just long enough to reveal what we are still capable of feeling.
you did that for me.
you reminded me that despite everything that has happened to me,
despite grief and fear and all the ways life has tried to harden me,
i am still someone who knows how to care deeply.
that feels important.
so wherever life takes you,
i hope life is gentle with you.
i hope you are eating something warm.
i hope your body unclenches.
i hope one day you stop running from the parts of yourself that wanted to stay.
and selfishly,
quietly,
i hope there are moments when you remember me gently.
because despite everything,
i cared for you honestly.
and that is something i will never be ashamed of.
but i think we must have had very different definitions of care.
because i would have never discarded you so callously.
i would have never let someone i cared for sit alone inside confusion while i quietly walked away from them.
i would have never made tenderness feel disposable.
and maybe that is the hardest thing for me to make peace with.
not that you stopped choosing me.
but that in the end,
you handled my heart so differently than i would have handled yours.
still,
wherever you are,
i hope the sun finds you gently.
i hope there are mornings where warmth spills across your face and, for a fleeting second, you think of me.
i hope when light settles across your shoulders during a long walk,
it reminds you of the way i cared for you.
steady.
soft.
without asking for anything in return.
because if nothing else,
i hope you remember that you were once cared for deeply by someone who meant it.
