I’m Not Sure He’ll Ever Understand
And even if the words never reach him, they’ve reached me—and maybe they’ll reach someone else who’s been holding the same questions, the same quiet loneliness, the same hope.
— Calla Hart
Sometimes we write not to be understood by them—but to better understand ourselves.
I think part of me always hoped he would read it.
The book. The journal entries. Even just a single post that might stir something—an aha moment, a flicker of recognition, a glimpse of the patterns I spent so long trying to name. I imagined what it would be like if he finally saw what I had come to see—not just about him, or me, but about us.
The silent misunderstandings.
The missed cues.
The weight I carried in the space between what I felt and what I could never seem to explain clearly enough to be heard.
I had my own breakthroughs while writing this memoir—realizations that shook me, softened me, and changed the way I remembered everything. I understood things differently once the words were out of my head and onto the page. Writing helped me make meaning out of confusion, gave structure to my grief, and offered light in the fog of trying to love someone whose mind works so differently from mine.
And still, I don’t know if he’ll ever understand.
Not in the way I once longed for.
Not in the way that would let me exhale and say, Yes. You see it now too.
So part of me braces for that reality. I make room for the ache that it might never come. That the book may exist in the world without ever landing in his hands—or if it does, that it might not land the way I hope.
But here’s what I’ve realized:
Even if he doesn’t understand, I do.
Even if I never feel fully seen by him, I’m starting to see myself.
And even if the words never reach him, they’ve reached me—and maybe they’ll reach someone else who’s been holding the same questions, the same quiet loneliness, the same hope.
Writing has become my way through. My way of feeling less alone. Of offering something to others who need to know they’re not the only ones wondering if they’re asking for too much—or if they’re simply asking for a kind of love that listens.
So I keep writing. Not just for him, but for her—the woman I used to be, and the one reading this now.
Maybe this isn’t the story he’ll ever fully understand.
But maybe it’s the one that helps someone else feel understood.
