When Your Heart Doesn’t Listen to the Truth

-

 

Have you ever mourned someone who didn’t die—but simply stopped loving you?

When an important relationship ends, the grief is unlike anything else. It’s not always explosive. Sometimes it’s slow. Silent. Like a room gradually running out of oxygen. And in that suffocation, you start to feel something terrifying—like your mind is splitting in two.


One half is rational. The voice of truth. It whispers things like, “They’re gone. They treated you coldly. They flirted with other people while you were breaking. They ignored you when all you needed was a little love, a little effort.” That version of you knows this isn’t what love looks like. It knows real love shows up. Real love doesn’t vanish when you're drowning. Real love doesn't leave you on “read” while you cry silently into a pillow.


The other half? Emotional. And relentless.

This part of you refuses to let go. It remembers the nights filled with laughter and warmth. It still feels them in your arms. Still hears the softness in their voice when they said, “You feel like home.” It replays the time they opened up about a lonely childhood—and how all you wanted was to protect them. Emotional memory makes you forget the pain, and instead turns them into a song stuck in your soul, looping endlessly, haunting you in your dreams.


And even though months have passed…
Even though they’ve blocked you, ghosted you, ignored every attempt to reconnect…
Your heart still waits.

It doesn’t matter that your mind is screaming “They don’t care.”


Emotion doesn’t care about logic. Emotion holds onto hope like a child waiting at the door for someone who’s never coming back.

And God, it’s exhausting.

You tell yourself, “I won’t reach out. I won’t fall again.” But then your heart whispers, “What if they’re just scared? What if they miss me too?” The temptation creeps in—write them a letter, call a family member, DM a friend… anything, just to be heard. Just to be remembered.

But here’s what love shouldn’t feel like:
It shouldn’t feel like you’re begging for clarity.
It shouldn’t feel like you’re punishing yourself for loving deeply.


And it sure as hell shouldn’t feel like you’re chasing someone who runs every time you hurt.

That’s what my relationship became—with someone I loved for 7 years. I gave them all of me, even during the darkest moments of my life. I begged for them to stay when I was grieving. I stood by them through everything. But when I needed them most, they became distant. And eventually, they left.


They didn't just leave me. They left a part of me confused, broken, and unable to understand how love could vanish like smoke.

The truth is… healing isn’t linear. Reason might know they’re never coming back, but emotion? It moves at the speed of a camel, like the old Arabic proverb says. It takes months—sometimes years—for your heart to catch up with what your mind already knows.

But eventually…


Slowly…
Your heart will get tired of hurting.

And one day, you’ll wake up and they’ll be there in your memory, but no longer in your bloodstream. You’ll still think of them—but without the ache. You’ll finally see the full picture: not just the sweet parts, but the parts where they left you hanging, where they chose silence over love, where they stopped being a safe place.


And maybe—just maybe—your heart will quietly whisper back to your mind,
"You were right all along."


For Empress, always.

— Jaes

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Kind of Love That Breaks You

-
Image
  There’s a kind of love that’s deeper than words. The kind where, when they hurt, you’d do anything— anything —to take their place. You see them in pain, and somehow,  you  start apologizing… saying you’re sorry for what they’re going through, even though it’s not your fault. Because they don’t deserve an ounce of it. That’s the love I had for Empress. My sister. My best friend. My person. When she first fell ill, it didn’t seem serious. It was “just anemia,” they said. We all thought she’d be fine in a couple weeks— she  thought so too. But weeks went by, and she didn’t get better. I remember the day she left home to get admitted. I cried so much, I made myself sick the next day. I cried with one prayer on my lips: “God, if anything is going to happen to her, take me instead.” And I meant every word. A world without my sister wasn’t a world I wanted to live in. We argued a lot—don’t get it twisted—but no one had my back like her. No one  knew  me l...
Read more

💔 “What Would You Say to Her?”

-
Image
  — A Letter I Wasn’t Ready to Write Someone asked me a question the other day. Simple words. Soft tone. “If you had the chance to see Empress again… what would you say?” At first, I smiled. The kind of smile that escapes before your chest realizes how much it hurts to imagine. For a second, I saw her. I felt her. I pictured myself running up to her, wrapping her in the tightest hug, and never letting go. The kind of hug that says,  I’m sorry ,  I miss you , and  please don’t go again , all at once. And then, in my mind, I broke down — not just crying, but sobbing in that raw, uncontrollable way grief knows too well.   But when it came time to answer the question, I couldn’t. I stammered. My throat dried up. My words got stuck in a traffic jam of emotions I’ve never been able to fully explain.   Because how do you speak to someone who was your  life , your calm, your person… …when you know you only have a few minutes? When you know this imaginary ...
Read more

🖤 Grief Doesn’t Expire

-
Image
  🖤  Grief Doesn’t Expire I’m just 28 years old, but I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything harder than trying to move on from losing my sister. And I’m not sure I ever truly will.   Grief doesn’t expire. It doesn’t clock out. It doesn’t gently fade like they say it will. Some days, I wake up thinking I’ve made progress — like I’ve learned to carry the loss a little better. But then a memory hits, or a moment breaks open, and I’m right back at the start.   For me, two of the biggest heartbreaks of my life collided. I lost Empress — my sister, my closest friend, the one person who made everything feel a little less heavy. And just a few months later, I lost the girl I thought I was going to spend forever with. A 7-year relationship, gone. And so I’ve been grieving two people at once.   It’s like my mind takes shifts between them. One day, I’m mourning my sister, trying to push through the ache. Then out of nowhere, a video of my ex shows up on my scre...
Read more