Lately I’ve been wondering why I can never seem to stay. Or why they can never seem to stay. It feels like a pattern now, this push and pull, and I’m starting to think the fear of being left might be the very thing that makes us leave first. We both run. I see it in their eyes sometimes, that same restless look I feel in my own chest.
We want such different things. I make lists. I work toward something stable, a future you can picture. They come from a harder place, where nothing was certain, and I think that shaped them. For them, life is about what happens right now. There’s no plan, just feeling. Permanence is a concept that doesn’t really stick. I remember being at an amusement park with them once. They headed straight for the biggest, fastest coaster, the one that goes upside down. I stood there, looking at the gentle river ride. That’s us, in a way. They need the thrill, the drop in their stomach. I just wanted the calm water, the predictable route. It’s not a judgment, just a fact. We experience the world through entirely different lenses.
We’ve tried to walk away before. More than once. But something always pulls us back. There’s a fondness there, a deep-running affection that survives all the friction. It reminds me of those old Hollywood couples, like Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. Explosive, messy, impossible at times, but you could never say they didn’t love each other fiercely. Maybe that’s what we have. A love that doesn’t fit neatly into a life, but a love nonetheless.
I see how we approach everything differently. They live in the moment. I live for the next milestone. It’s these things underneath, these fundamental ways of being, that probably keep us from ever truly building something together. Yet, they’re also the very things that make it so hard to let go. The attachment lingers, long after the arguments fade, complicating every choice to stay or leave. I don’t know which one of us will end up being the runner this time. Maybe it will be me.
