The last call.

Today marks a year since the last time we spoke.

I've thought about whether to write about it.

I've actually thought about it quite a lot.

Not because I want to drag the past back into the present, but because some dates stay with you whether you want them to or not.

A year ago, I made that call knowing I probably wouldn't get another chance to say everything I needed to say.

So I put it all out there.

I apologised.

Properly.

I said I was sorry for the things I'd done wrong, the things I'd got wrong, and for the hurt I'd caused.

I know what I did. I know what I didn't do. I apologised for what was mine to own. I told the truth about what wasn't.

And after that, I had to let go of needing to be understood.

There were things I was accused of that day that didn't match how I saw myself, and in the moment I couldn't get past how unfair that felt.

I remember pushing back hard on it. Too hard, probably.

Looking back, I think I was so focused on being understood that I didn't leave much room for why they might have seen it differently.

We talked.

It wasn't some perfect Hollywood ending.

There wasn't a magical moment where everything suddenly made sense.

There was just two people talking, with a hell of a lot of history sitting between them.

And perhaps that's what makes some connections so difficult to explain.

Some don't feel like they're beginning when they happen.

They feel strangely familiar.

Almost as though you're arriving in the middle of a story that had already started.

Looking back now, I think I understand that a little better.

Whatever it was, it was never ordinary.

And somewhere in that conversation, I was told I'd never see them again.

At the time, those words felt pretty definitive.

Like a door being slammed shut.

And I think part of me believed that was it.

That conversation would become one of those things you remember occasionally and wonder how life might have been different.

But a funny thing happens in a year.

The things that felt enormous at the time start to look slightly different from a distance.

I've changed.

My life has changed.

I've learned a lot about myself.

I've made mistakes.

I've owned them.

I've apologised for them.

I've also had to learn that sometimes you can explain your truth as clearly as you possibly can and still not be believed.

That's a difficult thing to accept.

Because when someone has made their mind up about you, there isn't always a perfect sentence that changes it.

Sometimes all you can do is tell the truth and leave it there.

And that's probably what I did that day.

I put everything I had into that conversation.

Not perfectly.

Not eloquently.

Probably with a fair amount of emotion and a few words that, with hindsight, I might have chosen differently.

But honestly.

A year later, that's the bit I'm most comfortable with.

We both said what we needed to say.

And then life carried on.

For both of us.

I've sometimes wondered what I'd say if I could go back to that call with everything I know now.

I don't think I'd change much.

I'd probably tell myself to breathe.

I'd probably tell myself not to try so hard to make someone understand something they weren't ready to hear.

And I'd probably tell myself that one conversation doesn't get to decide the rest of your life.

Because it didn't.

A year later I'm sitting here with a completely different life.

Still figuring out who I am when I'm not defined by what happened before.

And perhaps that's the strangest thing about anniversaries.

You remember exactly where you were...

But you aren't necessarily the person who was standing there anymore.

So I don't look back at that call with anger.

I don't even look back at it wishing I could change the outcome.

I just remember it.

Two people.

One conversation.

A lot left unsaid, and probably a lot that needed saying.

And me finally putting everything I had on the table.

Maybe that's enough.

Maybe sometimes closure isn't something another person gives you.

Maybe it's simply knowing that, when the moment came, you told the truth, you owned your mistakes, you said you were sorry, and you left nothing important unsaid.

A year.

That's a long time.

And somehow...

It doesn't feel like yesterday.

But it doesn't feel that long ago either.

Funny old thing, memory.

It keeps some conversations alive long after the call has ended.

A year ago, I thought that call was the end of something.

Maybe it was.

But it wasn't the end of me