There Is No After You.

I try not to think about it too often.

Because honestly, I don’t like thinking about a world where you are not in it with me.

But I know life.

I know that loving someone this much doesn’t come with a guarantee that we get to leave this Earth at the exact same time. (Fingers crossed, though, right?!)

And if someday, hopefully several decades from now, you happen to go before me…

there will be no after you.

I don’t mean that in some tragic, my life is over kind of way.

I’d live.

I’d still laugh.

I’d still go places.

I’d still drink coffee.

I’d spend time with the people I love.

I’d carry on with whatever life I had left.

But there wouldn’t be another great love.

Because how could there be?

Anyone who came after you would have to constantly live in comparison to you.

And that wouldn’t be fair to them.

And it would torture me.

You would be the benchmark.

The barometer.

I’d compare the way they talk to me to the conversations we had.

Whether I felt as safe.

Whether I laughed as hard.

Whether if I felt relaxed enough to be fully silly and unhinged.

Whether we could talk for hours about everything and absolutely nothing.

Whether they understood all the strange little parts of me that you somehow learned to understand.

I’d wonder if their arms felt as much like home.

Would they appreciate a running jump their arms like you did.

If their eyes sparkled bright blue like yours.

If being beside them felt as natural as being beside you.

And eventually I’d realize what I already know now.

The answer is no.

They aren’t you.

Nobody is.

Nobody can be.

And I wouldn’t want to spend whatever time I had left searching for pieces of you in somebody else.

I’d rather just miss you. 😢

I’d rather keep loving you from this side of earth,

and pass the time thinking about our next lifetime together.

I’d rather carry around this amazing lifetime we built together,

and be so grateful that, out of all the people on this planet, I got you.

Because there was a full life before you.

And then…

there was you.

You didn’t erase everything that came before.

You just drastically changed the measurement.

You became the thing I didn’t know love could be.

And once you’ve had that…

what exactly are you supposed to look for next?

A replacement?

There isn’t one. 🥺

So no, my Starman.

There is no after you.

There is only before you…

and you.

And hopefully, if I have anything to say about it, I get an INSANE amount of years of YOU.

But if the Universe ever makes one of us finish this journey first, and it happens to be you…

don’t worry about me.

I’ll ride out the rest.

I’ll have our memories.

I’ll have our stories.

I’ll have this website. 🥲

I will tell the girls every story over and over,

and when they bore of them, I will just tell my then pet cat.

I’ll have a lifetime’s worth of knowing what it felt like to be loved by you.

And I’ll still be yours.

Not because I stopped living.

Not because I couldn’t move forward.

But because when it came to this kind of love…

you were never going to be a hard act to follow.

You were always going to be the final act. ❤️