3 Years

Three years. I can write it down, but my heart still doesn't understand.

Three years without you.

Three years with a silence that is sometimes so loud that it tears me apart.

Three years with a pain that has not grown weaker, but deeper, quieter, more insidious.

It sits in my bones, in my heartbeat, in every breath I take.

A period of time that sounds like “a long time ago” and “just happened” at the same time. No one prepares you for the fact that grief doesn't fade—it just changes. That the second and third years are sometimes more brutal than the first, because the shock wears off and reality sets in.

Deep. Hard. Final.

They say that with time, you learn to live with it.

I say: Time only teaches you what permanent pain feels like.

How to hide it.

How to keep functioning even though your body is screaming and your soul has long since hit rock bottom.

I've shared a lot over the last few years:

the pain, the powerlessness, the insatiable longing.

And yet none of these posts cover what it's really like to live with this hole in your life and keep going.

And no post has ever captured the moment when the world briefly stands still because a song, a place, a smell brings you back—so close that my heart believes you'll open the door any moment.

And immediately afterwards, reality hits you like a slap in the face.

It burns anew every time.

A song, a photo, a random thought.

And I break down inside, even though I remain silent on the outside.

Because I know exactly that there is no going back.

No waking up from this nightmare.

No “it'll be alright.”

Paris with your sister was beautiful—and at the same time, it tore me apart inside.

Happiness and sadness stood side by side like two worlds that cannot stand each other.

That brief moment of lightness at the concert – and then the song, your song.

It was like a punch in the chest.

A brief feeling of closeness, and at the same time the brutal truth:

You're not here.

Not anymore.

Never again.

Three years later, I find myself where I never wanted to be:

with depression that settles in waves like heavy fog.

With days that I only get through because I have to.

With nights when I think too much and sleep too little.

With a longing that eats away at every breath I take.

I am tired.

The depression runs deep.

The grief does not stop.

It changes you.

It takes away your sense of security.

It eats away at your energy, your hope, your sleep.

It weighs heavily on every day and makes even small things exhausting.

The pain makes you thin-skinned and hard at the same time.

It takes away colors, sounds, lightness.

It cuts up the places in your life where there used to be joy and leaves gaps through which new grief flows every day.

I have seen myself walking, talking, working—while inside I am screaming, breaking, searching.

I have learned to survive, even though sometimes I don't know how.

I have heard so often that I seem “strong.”

What a mistake.

I don't seem strong—I function.

I get up even though everything inside me wants to stay down.

I smile even though my chest is burning.

But I stand.

Not strong.

Not brave.

Not “exemplary in dealing with grief.”

I stand because I have no other choice.

And because he deserves for me to keep going—even if every step burns.

The truth is ugly:

I miss you so much that it physically hurts.

Every. Single. Day.

Three years without him.

Three years with a love that remains.

And with a pain that has burned itself deep into my life.

I would like him back.

Just for a moment.

Just to laugh, feel, hear, see one more time.

But I have also learned that love does not end.

Not with the last breath.

Not with the day of the funeral.

Not after a year.

Not after three.

It remains—only without support.

There were moments like the sunset over the sea, Vietnam, Thailand, a song, a concert... that touched me. Small situations in which he was suddenly so close again that it almost hurt. And yet it was precisely those moments that showed me that I can still feel.

That my heart is not only broken, but also connected.

But what remains is the memory.

And the knowledge:

I carry him in my heart. Every day.

I keep going.

Not because it gets easier.

But because I love you.

And that love doesn't stop—not today, not tomorrow, not in three years, and not in thirty.

I keep going.

Not because my heart is healing.

But because it keeps beating for you.

Because a part of you lives on in me, even if it hurts.

I love you just as infinitely today as I did on the day the world stopped

being right.