Sometimes it feels like our love doesn't stop. Even when it's over, we love. Even when they don't love anymore, we love. Even when years have passed with zero contact and we know we will very likely never see them again or talk to them again, we still love.
Basically, we love until we don't love anymore, which can happen at any time for any reason, big or small, and everything will just turn off like a switch. But we are still going to love them just a little bit, even when we don't. And we are still going to love them just a bit even if logically we know we only love the idea of them. Plus, no matter who ended it, it will likely take us a long time to sort it all out and process everything.
We humans are great at figuring out when something is not working, but sometimes, we are not so great at disentangling. We can never see the finish line. Despite the awareness that what one person does can never be enough, love makes us hopeful. We live our lives with the belief that who we are to people is a measure of what they are to us. And it is up to us to be who they deserve. It is our practicality and our emotions.
So when people fade in and out of our lives, it doesn't make us stop.
It feels liberating to continue to love after they have moved out of our lives. Over time, that love turns into admiration and a very subtle rejection for the need of their approval. We don't strive for a connection or try to match expectations, we just love them. We do have thoughts about what could have been, but that's a day dream like any other. Even if they never find their way back to us, how they once made us feel stays. And that's not such a bad deal.