I (used to) bet you think about me.

💌: “Oh my God, she’s insane, she wrote a piece about me.”

Memory is a fraud when it comes to love and relationships. I used to believe that when I loved someone, I left marks on them. Not the visible ones like scars or bruises, but the kind that linger like shadows, like statues of remembrance.

As if by loving loudly, deeply, and endlessly enough, I could carve myself into people’s memories as significantly as Mount Rushmore.

As if by giving my all, I could be known as their reason to become who they are today, like I’d earn a spot in their subconscious for a sculpture or a Kore statue of myself.

I thought that was how love worked: you give yourself fully, you drain yourself out without hesitation, and in return — even if everything else crumbles — you are remembered.

You become unforgettable.

Irreplaceable, because you are unforgettable.

So every time I stumbled across something that reminded me of myself, like a song, a phrase, a piece of art I adored, I thought, “Surely you think of me when you see this too. I made an impact on you.”

I bet you think about me.

But the truth I’ve had to wrestle with is this: often, they don’t. Not in the…