You were the best thing that had ever been mine

Mary Therese

I used to fear the word mine.

Not because I disliked the idea of having something to call my own, but because I had grown used to the inevitability of losing things. There was never really anything in my life I could hold with enough certainty to say, with pride and without hesitation, that this was mine. As a child, I had toys I loved with the full sincerity only children are capable of, but even those eventually slipped through my hands as adolescence slowly entered my system.

Somewhere between growing up and growing apart from the things that once brought me comfort, I learned that everything leaves. Some things disappear quietly. Some things loosen from your grip over time. Some things are taken from you before you even realize how much they mattered. Either way, loss became familiar enough that I started treating attachment like something dangerous.

Perhaps that is why I never learned how to claim myself through talent, either. I was never exceptionally good at sports, never musically gifted, never naturally talented in art. I write, yes, but even that feels uncertain sometimes. There are days when words flow like they were always meant to find me, and there are days when they feel foreign in my own hands. It is difficult to take pride in something when doubt constantly lingers at the edge of it.

Academics became the closest thing I had to something I could call mine. It kept me grounded, gave me direction, gave me something measurable to hold onto. But even that kind of possession came with conditions. Academics embraced me, but sometimes it devoured me too. And when it did, I found myself wondering whether this was truly something to be proud of, or simply something I had learned to survive inside.

So I braced myself for goodbye, because that was all I had ever really known.

Then I met you.

And somehow, without even realizing it, I began to understand the word mine differently. You became the muse of my words, the color in my art, and the familiar rhythm behind my playlists. These were the subtle patterns I kept finding in the things I loved, until I realized that so much of what brought me joy had begun to carry traces of you. Loving you felt unfamiliar at first because it challenged everything I thought I knew about attachment. Somehow, you made closeness feel safe.

The strangest part was how naturally admiration came with loving you. You excelled in ways I never could, even in spaces I had only ever admired from afar. Watching you move through sports with such skill and passion filled me with a feeling I struggle to put into words. Not the pride of claiming someone as an achievement, but the quiet and overwhelming pride that comes from witnessing someone you love become more of who they are meant to be. I was proud of you in ways that felt gentle and sacred.

That was what mine was always supposed to mean. It was never possession, but belonging.

And if anyone asked me what I could call mine with pride, my answer would be simple. It was loving you. It was the privilege of witnessing who you were becoming, and loving every version of you along the way, even the ones that I can no longer call mine.

You were the best thing that had ever been mine.