When Goodbye Isn’t Forever, But Still Hurts

Tonight feels heavy.

Rish leaves to go home in the early hours of the morning, and even though I know this isn’t goodbye forever, my heart is still breaking like it is.

We’ve spent this time together—real time, not through a screen, not through messages—and now I’m sitting here knowing that in just a few hours, he won’t be right here anymore.

And that hurts.

I keep reminding myself that we’ll see each other again. That this isn’t the end. Just a few months, and we’ll be together again.

But knowing that doesn’t make this moment any easier.

There’s something about loving someone so deeply and then having to go back to distance that feels like a piece of you is being pulled away.

It feels like part of me is staying behind with him… in that hotel room, in the quiet moments we shared, in the time that felt so real and so close.

And now I have to go back to missing him instead of reaching for him.

That shift is hard.

I’m grateful—so incredibly grateful—for the time we had. For the laughs, the closeness, the way he showed up for me, especially through everything I’ve been going through physically and emotionally.

But tonight, gratitude and sadness are sitting side by side.

And I’m letting them both be here.

Because loving someone like this… it’s worth it.

Even the hard parts.

Even the goodbyes that don’t feel final, but still feel like they take something out of you.

So tonight, I’m letting myself feel it.

The love.
The ache.
The missing that hasn’t even fully started yet.

And reminding myself that distance doesn’t undo what we have.

It just asks us to hold onto it a little differently for a while.

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Still healing. Still growing. Still rising — crowned in scars.
~Milli