Months go by without speaking, and the hardest part isn’t the silence—it’s deciding what to do with it. The silence doesn’t stay quiet. It shows up in small, random moments. Something funny happens and your first instinct is to text them. You see something that reminds you of them. A memory hits out of nowhere. For a second, it feels normal. Then reality sets in—you don’t talk anymore.

That’s when the question creeps in again. Do I reach out?

I’ve asked myself that more times than I’d like to admit. There are moments where I want to. Moments where I think maybe enough time has passed, maybe things would be different now, maybe we could talk it through like normal people. But right behind that feeling is another one—why?

Why am I the one thinking about reaching out when I didn’t walk away? Why am I the one trying to soften something that wasn’t handled softly in the first place?

That’s where the confusion sits.

It’s not that I don’t care. If anything, I care too much. That’s always been my pattern. I feel deeply. I hold onto people. I try to understand, fix, smooth things over. When something breaks, I don’t step back—I step in. I try to repair it, even when it’s already falling apart.

Rinse and repeat.

And if I’m being honest, this isn’t the first time. There’s been distance before. Arguments before. Moments where things weren’t okay. Every single time, I was the one trying to mend it. I was the one reaching out, trying to bring things back to what they used to be. I carried that role for a long time.

But this time feels different.

Not because I don’t miss her—I do. I miss the easy moments, the stupid laughs, the version of us that didn’t feel complicated. I miss not having to think about things this deeply. But something in me shifted.

Because at some point, you start to realize constantly being the one who fixes things isn’t love—it’s a pattern. And patterns don’t change unless you do something different.

So now I’m sitting in that difference.

I could reach out. I could fix it like I always have. But I’m choosing not to.

That choice isn’t easy. It doesn’t feel empowering every day. Some days it just feels uncomfortable. Some days I’m fighting the urge to do what I’ve always done—fix it, smooth it over, make it okay again. But I keep coming back to the same truth.

I didn’t break this.

I didn’t create the reaction. I didn’t choose the blow-up. I didn’t decide that this would turn into silence. So why am I the one trying to clean it up?

That question matters, because reaching out isn’t just about missing someone. It’s about what you’re willing to accept in order to have them back in your life.

And I’ve had to be honest with myself about that.

If I reach out, am I doing it because I want real resolution? Or because I’m uncomfortable with the distance? Because I miss what we had? Because I want things to feel normal again, even if nothing has actually changed?

Those are two very different reasons.

Wanting connection doesn’t mean ignoring a pattern that keeps hurting you. Because if nothing changes, then what am I really going back to? Another cycle. Another moment where I try to fix something that wasn’t mine to fix. Another situation where I carry the emotional weight while telling myself it’s just part of loving someone.

I don’t want that anymore.

That doesn’t mean I don’t love her. It doesn’t mean I don’t care. It doesn’t mean the door is closed forever. It just means I’m not chasing this one.

Not this time.

If there’s going to be a conversation, if there’s going to be any kind of repair, it has to come from both sides. It has to come with accountability, not just emotion. It has to be something real, not something that temporarily smooths things over.

Because I’ve done temporary fixes before.

They don’t last.

So now I’m choosing something unfamiliar. I’m choosing to sit in it. To let the silence exist without rushing to fill it. To let the distance be there without immediately trying to close it. To let the responsibility fall where it actually belongs instead of automatically picking it up.

Some days that feels heavy. Some days I still think about reaching out. Some days I miss her in ways that catch me off guard. Some days I question if I’m doing the right thing.

But then I remind myself—growth doesn’t always look like fixing things.

Sometimes it looks like not fixing them.

Sometimes it looks like breaking your own pattern instead of repeating it. Sometimes it looks like choosing your peace over the role you’ve always played.

And maybe that’s what this moment is.

Not the end. Not closure. Just a pause where I finally do something different.

So if she wants to reach out, she can.

But this time, I’m not going to be the one who goes first.

~Tj 🩷