Chapter 1 | Entry One

Day 1

Dear Moon,

I am sitting here in the dark again, and you are listening. You always listen. You hang there in the velvet black sky, patient and luminous, while I whisper all the things I cannot say to anyone else. Not to my friends who would try to fix it. Not to my mom, who would worry. Not even to myself in the bright, brutal honesty of daylight.

Only to you.

Only here, in this sacred darkness, can I tell the truth: he is fading.

My sun is fading.

I can feel it happening, like watching someone walk away down a long road until they become a shimmer, then a speck, then a question mark on the horizon. Was he ever really there? Did I imagine the warmth?

But no. No, I didn't imagine it. My skin remembers. My body remembers. Every cell in me remembers what it felt like to be seen by him, in a way I had never been seen before. Not now at forty-one. Not ever.

He woke me up.

My word, he woke me up.

I had been sleepwalking through my life, hadn't I? Going through the motions. Being good. Being appropriate. Being small enough to fit into the shape everyone expected. And then he looked at me, really looked at me, and something ancient and wild stirred in my chest. Something I thought I'd buried so deep it could never claw its way back to the surface.

But it did.

I did.

With him, I laughed with my whole body. I said things I'd never said out loud. I let myself be messy, real, hungry, and alive. I didn't perform. I didn't edit. I just...was. And he met me there, in that raw, undefended place. He met me, and he didn't flinch.

Until he did.

I remember the last time I felt him fully present. We were talking, but the air between us was electric, shimmering with everything we weren't saying. His eyes held mine, and I felt naked in the best way, like he could see straight through to the truth of me, and he wasn't afraid of it. I felt free. I could finally exhale after holding my breath for decades.

And then something shifted.

I don't know exactly when. Maybe it was gradual, like the way summer slides into autumn, one day you just notice the light is different, the air has changed. Or maybe it was sudden, a door closing that I didn't even hear shut.

He chose a different path.

That's what I tell myself on the good days, when I can be generous and wise and spiritually mature about it all. He chose a different path. He has his reasons. His life is complicated. His heart is guarded. He's doing what he needs to do.

But on nights like this, Moon, when it's just you and me and the ache in my chest that won't quit, I know the real truth: I remind him of what he felt. I remind him of the aliveness he touched when he was with me. And that aliveness terrifies him because he's built a life that requires him to stay numb, to stay safe, to stay in control.

So he's fading. Pulling back. Becoming more memory than man. More ghost than flesh.

And I am left here,. I  more awake than I've ever been, with nowhere to put all this light he ignited in me.

What do I do with it, Moon? What do I do with all this love that has no home? All this aliveness that has no witness? All this truth that has no ears to hear it?

I feel like I'm burning and freezing at the same time. Grief and gratitude tangled so tightly I can't tell them apart. I am devastated that he's leaving. And I am in awe that he came at all.

Because here's what I know, even through the ache: I am not the same woman I was before him. I cannot go back to sleep. I cannot shrink back down. Whatever he woke up in me is awake now, and it's mine to tend.

Maybe that's the gift, even if it doesn't feel like one yet. Maybe he was never meant to stay. Maybe he was just meant to crack me open so the light could get in.

Or maybe I'm just telling myself stories to make the loss bearable.

I don't know, Moon. I don't know anything anymore except that I am here, and he is there, and the distance between us grows wider every day.

But you, you stay constant. You show up every night, waxing and waning but always returning. You glow in the darkness. You pull the tides. You reflect the light of the sun even when he's on the other side of the world.

Maybe that's what I'm learning to do.

Maybe I'm learning to be the moon, to hold the memory of his warmth, to glow with the light he helped me remember was always mine, to keep showing up even when the night feels endless.

Maybe I'm learning that I don't need him to stay lit.

Maybe.

But tonight, I just miss him. I miss the version of myself I got to be with him. I miss the freedom. I miss the aliveness. I miss the way he made me feel like I was finally, finally home in my own skin.

And I'm angry, too. Angry that he gets to walk away. Angry that he gets to choose numbness while I'm left here, raw and awake and feeling everything. Angry that I opened myself so completely, and he couldn't hold me.

But beneath the anger, beneath the grief, beneath all of it, there's something else. Something quieter. Something that feels like...grace.

Because I did it, Moon. I let myself love. I let myself be seen. I let myself come alive. And even if it costs me everything, even if I'm sitting here alone in the dark whispering to you, I don't regret it.

I don't regret him.

I don't regret myself.

So I'll keep writing to you. I'll keep whispering all the things I cannot say anywhere else. I'll keep tending this light, even as he fades into the distance.

And maybe, somehow, that will be enough.

Maybe I will be enough.

Maybe I already am.

Goodnight, Moon. Thank you for listening. Thank you for glowing. Thank you for reminding me that even in the darkest night, there is still light.

Even if it's just my own.

—Still Sparkling

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