The Space Between Almost and Enough

I have spent so much of my life
standing somewhere in the middle—
never quite lost enough
to be rescued,
never quite found enough
to feel at home.

Always almost.

Almost chosen.
Almost loved.
Almost someone's certainty.

And then there was you.

You already had someone,
and somehow I became tangled
in the space between the two of you-
a place I never asked to enter,
but somehow couldn't find my way out of.

You both were trying to let go.

At least, that's what I believed.

Trying to loosen your hands
from something that had already
become too complicated to hold.

And somehow,
after all these years,
you chose that over me.

Not because I wasn't there.
Not because I didn't care.
Not because I wouldn't have stayed.

But because there was something
between you two
that I could never compete with…

a history I wasn't part of,
memories I couldn't erase,
a bond that kept pulling you back
even when you said you were letting go.

And I became the place
where all of that mess landed.

Your confusion became mine.
Your guilt became mine.
Your unfinished feelings
became something I carried
as though they belonged to me.

I kept trying to understand
what I had done wrong.

What I could have been.
What I could have given.
What version of myself
might have finally made you choose me.

But maybe there was never
anything wrong with me.

Maybe I was simply standing
in the middle of a story
that had begun long before I arrived.

And still,
I tried to fix it.

I tried to make sense
of things that weren't mine to understand,
to heal wounds
I never caused,
to hold together pieces
that were already falling apart.

I kept thinking
if I could just love you correctly,
patiently, quietly,
without asking for too much,

you would eventually
turn toward me.

But I was always waiting
for someone who was already
looking somewhere else.

And there is something
so lonely about that.

To be seen,
but not chosen.

To be wanted,
but not enough
to become a decision.

To exist in someone's life
without ever becoming
their certainty.

So I began to disappear
inside the waiting.

I became obsessed
with fixing what wasn't mine,
with becoming beautiful enough,
soft enough,
understanding enough
to make someone stay.

As if my worth
could be measured
by whether someone
finally chose me.

And somewhere beneath all of that
was a quieter truth:

I know I'm meant for more.

I have always known.

I can feel it
in the parts of me
that refuse to completely give up.

But I don't know where to start.

I am caught between
the life everyone expects me to want
and the life I secretly ache for.

Between being beautiful
and being seen.

Between being desired
and being deeply chosen.

Between who I have been
and whoever I am becoming.

Everything feels unfinished.

My dreams.
My plans.
My heart.
Even the version of myself
I keep promising
I will become someday.

And maybe that's why
I keep returning to old things.

Because unfinished things
make me believe
there must still be something
I can fix.

But perhaps not everything
is meant to be fixed.

Perhaps some things
are only meant to teach you
how much of yourself
you were willing to lose
just to be loved.

And maybe one day
I will stop asking

Why wasn't I enough?

and start asking

Why did I keep believing
I had to be enough
for someone who couldn't choose me?

Maybe being unfinished
doesn't mean I'm broken.

Maybe being lost
doesn't mean I've failed.

Maybe I am simply
standing at the beginning
of a life I haven't learned
how to recognize yet.

And maybe,
after spending so long
waiting for someone else
to choose me,

I am finally learning
that I can choose myself.

Even if I don't know where I'm going.

Even if I'm still lost.

Even if the story
isn't finished.

Maybe this time,

I get to be the one
who decides
where it ends.