Love letters to the ones who ghosted

There is a particular kind of silence that follows a ghosting. It isn’t the peaceful, companionable silence of a library, nor the contemplative silence of an early morning. It is a loud, ringing silence, filled with the words that were never said, the questions that were never answered, and the explanations that were never offered.

Most of us have been on one end of this equation. The digital ether is littered with the faint blue ticks of messages sent and seen, but not replied to. It’s a uniquely modern form of disappearance, one that leaves the departed-from in a state of suspended animation, perpetually waiting for a response that will never arrive.

In the absence of a dialogue, we create our own. We write letters. Not to be sent, of course. That would defeat the purpose. Sending the letter would imply a desire for reconnection, a plea for a response that would, in all likelihood, never come. It would be a performance of vulnerability for an audience of one who has already left the theatre.

No, these letters are for us. They are a way of ordering the chaos, of giving shape to the formless void left by an abrupt departure. They are the conversations we play out in our heads, the arguments we wish we had made, the final, cutting remarks we think of hours too late. They are the most honest form of writing most of us will ever do, precisely because they are never meant to be read.

This is the private archive, the folder of drafts, the notes app confessionals. It is where we allow ourselves to be petty, or profound, or heartbroken, or furious, without judgment. We can be the bigger person, or we can be the person who deserved better. We can be eloquent and incisive, or we can just be sad. The page accepts it all.

I’m starting a new segment here for these unsent letters. Not just my own, but a space for the things we all wish we could have said. Think of it as a literary exercise in closure, a collection of love letters — and otherwise — to the ones who vanished. It is an acknowledgment that sometimes, the only way to get the last word is to write it down and then, crucially, walk away.

It is in the act of writing, not the sending, that we find our resolution.