The Unanswered Message

The last couple of weeks have been emotionally exhausting. Not because everything has been bad, but because I’ve been forced to feel things I thought I had already made peace with.

At the end of August, my mother was admitted to the hospital after suffering two minor strokes. Thankfully, they were caught in time. There was no paralysis, no surgery, and the doctors believed everything could be controlled with medication. We were incredibly lucky but I was scared. There is something about seeing your mother lying in a hospital bed that makes you feel like a child again, no matter how old you are and in the middle of that fear, I thought of him. My Stud. A couple of years ago, his father had a stroke. I remembered how scared and upset he was. I couldn’t physically be there for him, but I listened. I prayed. I sent positive thoughts. I tried to make sure he knew someone cared. So, in a vulnerable moment, I reached out. I told myself I wasn’t expecting anything. That was a lie. I wasn’t asking him to come back into my life. I wasn’t asking for an explanation or trying to reopen whatever had existed between us. I just wanted him to say something. I’m sorry. I’ll pray for your mom. Thinking of you. Hell, even a heart would have been enough. Instead, there was silence. And this time, it broke something in me. Or maybe it finally healed something. Because for once, I stopped trying to explain his silence. I stopped wondering if he was busy, uncomfortable, protecting himself, confused, or afraid of reopening the door between us. None of it mattered anymore. He wasn’t there. And that was my answer.

I finally understood that silence is communication too. It may not be the answer we want, but sometimes it is the clearest answer we’re ever going to get. So that night, I blocked him. Not because I hated him. Not because I wanted to punish him I blocked him because I finally realized how much I was hurting myself by leaving that door open. Every notification carried a tiny bit of hope. Maybe it’s him. Every time I opened social media, some part of me wondered if he had looked at my page. Every day became another opportunity to wonder if maybe today would be the day he finally reached out. And every day he didn’t, I experienced the rejection all over again. I couldn’t keep doing that to myself.

So I closed the door. The strange thing is, I thought I would regret it the next morning. I didn’t. I woke up feeling peaceful. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t waiting. And God, there is freedom in no longer waiting for someone to choose you. Do I still miss him? Absolutely. I probably will for a long time. He was an important part of my life during a time when I desperately needed someone to remind me who I was. He asked me for my “three thoughts” when I barely knew what I thought anymore. He told me to Be you when I had forgotten who “me” even was. That mattered. He mattered. And I don’t have to pretend he didn’t just because our story didn’t end the way I wanted it to. That’s something I’ve finally learned.

People can matter and still not be meant to stay. A connection can change you and still end. You can miss someone and still know they no longer belong in your life and you can love what someone once meant to you without continuing to hurt yourself waiting for them to become that person again. Maybe that’s what letting go really is. It isn’t forgetting. It isn’t becoming angry. It isn’t convincing yourself that none of it mattered. It’s being able to say: You mattered to me. I miss you. I wish things had ended differently. But I cannot keep hurting myself because you chose not to stay. His silence finally gave me the closure I had spent so long looking for. Not the closure I wanted but perhaps the closure I needed.

Because sometimes the unanswered message is the answer. Sometimes you have to stop asking why someone isn’t choosing you and finally choose yourself. And this time, it did