[Intro - 4 bars, fingerpicked guitar motif]

[Verse 1 - intimate]
We'd spend whole evenings side by side
Content to let the hours slide
You had your things and I had mine
And somehow that was still our time

We didn't need to fill the air
It mattered knowing you were there
I thought the years would see us through
I never drew a world past you

[Pre-Chorus]
A truth I hadn't named for years
Had left its mark in ways unclear
And side by side, we came to see
How far apart we'd come to be

[Chorus]
This is the life I never planned
Still, here I stand
I miss the life we used to know
I know why we had to let it go

The good years are not made untrue
By what we could not carry through
Some things can end
And not be lost

[Verse 2]
I still get lost in things I like
And let the hours drift by at night
The quiet used to feel like space
Now absence seems to take its place

I liked the time I had alone
Because I knew you had your own
Now both of us can choose our way
I miss the quiet of those days

[Pre-Chorus]
We chose to part before the strain
Could turn the good we had to pain
There is no peace without the truth
The only way ahead was through

[Chorus]
This is the life I never planned
Still, here I stand
I miss the life we used to know
I know why we had to let it go

The good years are not made untrue
By what we could not carry through
Some things can end
And not be lost

[Instrumental Break - 8 bars, guitar motif and cello]

[Bridge - stripped back]
I won't go searching for a sign
That someone else's life fits mine
First I will learn to be alone
Not as a sentence, as a home

[Final Chorus - same melody, gentle lift]
This is the life I never planned
Still, here I stand
I miss the life we used to know
I know why we had to let it go

The good years are not made untrue
By what we could not carry through
Some things can end
And not be lost

[Outro Tag]
Whatever waits beyond the bend
I know this is not where I end

[Instrumental Outro - opening guitar motif, one cello response]