You Will Learn To Appreciate Her, Only After She’s Gone

Appreciate her worth and emotions. She is worthy enough to receive your appreciation. Respect her feelings before she decides to leave you. She’s the type of girl you won’t appreciate at first. One who will try too hard and always be available.

The type of girl who is easy to read because she’s honest and blunt and forward. It won’t feel like much when you have her time and attention because she gives it to you so easily.

She’s the type of girl you won’t get too excited about because you’re never wondering about how she feels.

She’s the one who answers quickly. Initiates plans. Invites you everywhere. Tries too hard.

And at first, you are going to realize she’s different. That she deserves to be treated with the same respect you haven’t even earned yet but she gives it away for free.

In beginning, you are going to treat her well.

And in return, she’s going to treat you better and try harder and just continue to give, like it looks easy. Because to her, it is. She naturally thinks about others before herself and it’s admirable.

Related: 7 Little Things That Make Her Feel Loved and Appreciated

Then suddenly this quality you admire and respect, you’ll take for granted. The calls you used to answer, the texts you’d respond to quickly, suddenly there’s a shift in you.

Suddenly you have her figured out and yes she’s different but she’s so easy to read, you know what move she’s going to make and what she’s going to say even before she says it.

She’s nice. She cares. She isn’t afraid to show it.

And then you suddenly become like the rest of them. Even though you swore you never would treat her as badly as others might have, you start to. You realize no matter how you treat her she doesn’t react to it. She just keeps being exactly who she is.

And that’s a different type of challenge for you. Because part of you wants to test her and get to her. So you try to and now you are playing games and messing with her head and being a complete asshole because you want to see how much you can push her until she breaks.

She’s not naive and she’s not stupid. She knows exactly what you are doing. And even though she likes you, even these types of girls get to the point where they get tired of trying so hard.

She’ll fade from your life a little slowly. Then when you do think about her, you realize you haven’t spoken in a while. But when you reach out and she answers again quickly, there’s a shift there.

Suddenly she’s not caring to keep the conversation going. She suddenly stops trying and investing emotions and effort into you. She stops going out of her way. She stops inviting you everywhere. Because even girls like this realize some people aren’t worth it.

Then this girl who you spoke to every day slowly becomes this stranger. And the conversation is cordial but awkward.

Then it hits you that you’re standing in the same room as her and she feels like a stranger. You miss her even though she’s so close to you but emotionally far away.

She’s gone but in a haunting close kind of way.

Then you start to miss her.

You’ll look back and realize you didn’t appreciate her or value her the way she deserved. Because despite being shown the bad sides of you, you realize she always saw the good.

You’ll look back to every lie and excuse you ever told and you realize how understanding and tolerant she was of your BS.

You’ll look back and realize she probably deserved so many sorry’s but she never even asked for it or cared.

You’ll look back at everything she ever did for you and you realize you didn’t even invest half that effort into her.

You’ll look back at how many times you said no but when you asked her to be somewhere or do something she always said yes and was there.

You’ll look back and realize you weren’t kind to her and she never gave you a taste of your own medicine.

You’ll look back and realize she really did love you unconditionally and support you in everything you did.

You’ll look back and realize what you put her through yet she still came out wearing her heart on her sleeve loving really hard when you gave her every reason not to.

You’ll look back and realize as she tried to prove she deserved you, she’s the one that deserves better.

And even if it takes a while to get over you because it will, she will love again.

And it’s going to be a person who realizes what they have when they have it, not someone who has to lose her to realize her worth.

Related: You Don’t Appreciate Her Now But You’ll Regret It When Someone Else Does

You’ll see them together and you’ll see how happy he makes her and you’ll remember when that used to be you who had every bit of her time and attention and heart.

She smiles bigger. She’ll laugh harder. She’ll hold his hand a little more tightly when you’re around. Because the truth is she loved you and cared about you and did everything she was supposed to and it still wasn’t enough.

You’ll find yourself in moments overcome with jealousy you don’t even have the right to feel because it could have been you. It should have been you. But she couldn’t keep waiting for you to realize what she knew all along.

She’ll move on because she had to. And she’ll become happy because she deserves to. And she’ll fall in love because finally, that love she gave to you so carelessly finally came back to her.

Kirsten is the author of But Before You Leave, a book of poetry about the experiences we struggle to put into words. Follow Kirsten on Instagram and Facebook.

Written by Kirsten Corley
Originally appeared on Thought Catalog