How to miss someone with composure

There is a kind of missing that doesn’t make noise. It doesn’t call at midnight. It doesn’t break respect. It doesn’t send reckless messages that would unravel carefully built lives. It simply continues.

I miss you through writing. I miss you in drafts I never publish and in sentences that almost say your name but don’t.

I miss you while decluttering my room. I fold sweaters we once laughed in. I find photographs I almost posted publicly and didn’t because I convinced myself privacy was discipline. I hold the phone above my chest and then put it face down. I am very good at not pressing “share.”

I miss you through music. I add songs to a playlist as if it is a small, invisible museum. I curate it carefully. I do not send it to you. It exists as a place where memory lives without disturbing anyone. Sometimes I imagine you opening it accidentally. Sometimes I imagine you never do.

I miss you in the grocery store when I pass by the Skittles. I do not buy it. I stand there longer than necessary. I practice restraint the way other people practice scales on a piano.

I miss you when I have run out of hobbies to distract me with. In the space between messages I don’t send. In the way I still check the time difference without thinking. In the way my hand hovers over your contact name and then retreats, well-behaved. I miss you responsibly.

I miss you without trespassing. I miss you in ways that would look like nothing to anyone watching.

And yet, in the privacy of my room, I rehearse conversations we will never have. I imagine telling you about the most trivial things: how the barista spelled my name wrong again. It’s pronounced “you” not “ooo”. How I learned something useless and immediately wanted to tell you. How everyone else can be interesting but you could just sit there and I’d lose my composure. And you hated that.

But I also miss you with foresight.

I miss you knowing that no amount of missing alters architecture. I miss you with the quiet intuition that the next thing I hear about you will be an announcement involving church bells. I miss you as someone who understands that life continues in straight lines even when the heart curves. I imagine myself smiling, “I’m so happy for him.” I rehearse that sentence like it’s a language exam. I wonder whether my voice will shake. I wonder if anyone will notice.

I miss you in advance.

There is something ironic about wishing someone happiness and wishing it were with you. So I wished you a life that made sense on paper, even if it meant stepping aside.

Missing someone with awareness is different from missing them blindly. It stands at the edge of inevitability and says: I see where this is going. I will not interfere. There is strength in that. There is also a small cruelty.

Because sometimes bracing looks a lot like acceptance. And sometimes acceptance feels like self-erasure. And sometimes you wish, selfishly, that love did not require such composure.

So I miss you with understanding. Not because I am the bigger person, but because not all endings have to be cruel.