I Thought I Missed Him, But I Missed Me

I walked through the cave,

stone against skin,

water wrapping my legs

like a memory,

and for a moment,

he rose.

The laughter.

The hikes.

The shared silence between switchbacks.

The way he brought me coffee on cold mornings

and smiled like it meant something.

And for a breath, I thought

God, I miss him.

But I don’t.

What I miss is the woman I was when I still believed.

The version of me who opened wide,

who loved without guardrails,

who climbed mountains and called it connection

because someone was beside me.

But I was always the one moving.

The one breathing.

The one burning with aliveness.

It wasn’t him I longed for.

It was me.

The woman who felt electric under a wide sky.

The one who danced with the ache of the uphill

and kept going anyway.

The one who mistook inconsistency for intimacy

but still showed up with her whole, beating heart.

And now I know.

It was never his presence that made it sacred.

It was mine.

So no, I don’t miss him.

I miss the me I almost abandoned

trying to hold onto someone

who never really held me.

But she’s back.

Stronger. Clearer.

Evolved and Reclaimed.

And this time,

she hikes alone when she wants to,

and she never forgets who kept her going.

It was always me.

By Katherine Tatsuda

Katherine Tatsuda writes from the fire—grief, loss, betrayal, survival—and from the quiet power of what comes after. Her work is rooted in radical vulnerability and the conversations most leaders and speakers avoid. She is the voice behind Reinvention Modeled, where clarity becomes strategy and healing becomes authenticity.