you don’t miss them | musing no. 67

you miss who you were allowed to be — and you respect yourself too much to go back

new to cuffed? start here.

you don’t miss them. you miss who you were allowed to be.

people say they miss someone.

what they usually mean is:

i miss how i felt when life felt lighter.

i miss how certain moments made me feel more alive.

i miss a version of myself that existed in that window.

that distinction matters more than most people realize.

before we go any further, this is one of those ideas that landed first in audio. i unpacked this in real time on the cuffed podcast—less polished, more raw, more conversational. if you want the unfiltered version of how this realization formed, listen there first. the writing will still be here when you come back.

because when a relationship ends—especially one that mattered—it’s easy to confuse longing with regret, and nostalgia with truth.

but here’s the part we rarely sit with long enough:

if you truly went back to that person, you wouldn’t just be revisiting them.

you’d be revisiting yourself.

the version of you who hadn’t learned what you know now.

the version of you who tolerated what you no longer tolerate.

the version of you who hadn’t yet integrated the lesson.

and that’s where the paradox begins.

to genuinely go back, you’d have to abandon who you are now.

you’d have to unlearn the growth.

unsee the patterns.

undo the boundaries that cost you something to build.

most people don’t want that.

they just haven’t named it yet.

what they miss isn’t the person.

it’s the feeling—the way life felt then.

and those are not the same thing.

there’s nothing wrong with appreciating a chapter that made you feel alive.

in fact, it’s healthy.

you can honor a season without trying to re-enter it.

you can be grateful for what someone awakened in you without dragging it into the present where it no longer fits.

that’s not detachment.

that’s respect.

especially self-respect.

because growth has a cost.

and one of those costs is that some doors only open once—not because they were perfect, but because they served their purpose.

this is why “closure” is so often misunderstood.

sleeping with your ex one last time.

reopening conversations you already outgrew.

repeating the same dynamic under the illusion that this time will be different.

that’s not healing.

that’s self-betrayal dressed up as nostalgia.

doing the same thing again and expecting a different outcome isn’t romantic.

it’s refusing to accept what the lesson already taught you.

and when you look at it honestly (premium), most people don’t go back because they still believe.

they go back because moving forward requires letting go of a version of themselves they secretly liked.

here’s the reframe that changed everything for me:

i don’t move on because i’m cold.

i move on because i love myself too much to betray the person i’ve become.

that doesn’t erase the past.

it puts it in its proper place.

the memory stays.

the growth stays.

and i don’t confuse the two.

if this idea hit, it’s not an accident.

it connects directly to why we talk so much here about repetition, self-respect, and the quiet ways people abandon themselves while calling it hope.

there are other pieces that explore this from different angles—why bad advice feels comforting, why going backward feels easier than building forward, and why growth almost always costs you something familiar.

if you’re ready to keep pulling that thread, you’ll know where to look.

— author