I Learned to Live Without Warmth

I don’t remember when love left.

It didn’t slam the door.

It folded itself small

and slipped out through everyday routines.

Somewhere between washing dishes

and pretending not to hear your sighs.

My mother once told me:

You don’t always fall out of love.

Sometimes you just stop being held.

I didn’t understand then.

I do now.

There is a kind of loneliness that lives inside marriage.

It doesn’t scream.

It hums.

It sits beside you on the couch

while you scroll separate lives on separate screens.

It eats dinner with you.

It sleeps between your bodies.

People think heartbreak is dramatic.

Tears. Arguments. Suitcases.

But the real ending is quieter.

It looks like learning to sleep facing the wall.

It feels like forgetting what your laugh sounds like.

It sounds like saying “I’m fine”

so often that your mouth believes it.

I stayed longer than I should have.

Not because I loved you.

Because leaving felt heavier than staying.

Because hope has a strange way of turning into habit.

Because I told myself

this is what adults do.

They endure.

I learned the shape of your silence.

The way you stopped touching my back in bed.

The way your kisses became polite.

The way our conversations shrank

to grocery lists and weather reports.

Love didn’t die.

It was slowly starved.

There were good moments.

Coffee in quiet mornings.

Shared jokes in crowded rooms.

Your hand brushing mine by accident.

But even those began to feel borrowed.

Like memories we were rehearsing

instead of living.

They tell you to heal.

To process.

To talk about it.

To sit with your feelings.

They don’t tell you what it’s like

to wake up one day and realize

you’ve become emotionally unavailable to yourself.

They don’t tell you how grief can disguise itself

as productivity.

As Netflix marathons.

As late-night snacks eaten standing up.

Some nights I wanted to disappear.

Not dramatically.

Just softly.

Like fog lifting from pavement.

I started collecting small comforts.

Warm showers.

Random museum visits.

Music too loud in headphones.

Strangers’ smiles.

The weight of blankets.

Anything that reminded me

I still occupied space.

Here’s the truth nobody says out loud:

Sometimes people don’t break your heart.

They just stop reaching for it.

And eventually, it forgets how to beat properly.

I don’t hate you.

That would require energy.

I don’t miss you.

I miss the version of me

that believed in forever.

The girl who thought love meant safety.

The woman who trusted warmth.

Now, I measure relationships differently.

Not by passion.

By presence.

Not by promises.

By consistency.

Not by words.

By hands that stay.

Freedom after love is strange.

It tastes like frozen pizza at 2 a.m.

It feels like walking alone through familiar streets.

It sounds like silence that no longer hurts.

Just exists.

I am learning how to carry myself again.

How to sit with emptiness without decorating it.

How to stop waiting for closure from people

who left emotionally long before they left physically.

If you ask me now whether I love you,

what I really mean is:

I survived you.

I grew skin where wounds lived.

I learned to breathe without your approval.

I learned that loneliness with someone

is heavier than loneliness alone.

And some days, that is enough.