Ry,

Don’t ever say women forget faster than men. Here I am two years later, not quite over you. I wouldn’t say I still love you, I don’t really know you. How could I? You’ve been so good at removing yourself from my world and creating your own reality where I no longer exist. I haven’t really known you for years now, but I’m still in love with the hope of who you could have been then.

It’s strange. I never really loved you because it wasn’t you I loved, but the man I could imagine you being, the man you would always try to convince me you would be one day. And since you never were him, I never really had him, and how can you lose someone you don’t have? But without losing someone, there’s still hope of having him, less now than there was then, but still hope, a quiet, dim hope still burning after trying so hard to snuff it out. It whispers, “Maybe one day…”

The most heartbreaking experience was the moments I could see “him” almost within reach just to have him slip from my fingers and disappear before I could even blink my eyes. That’s how you were to me almost every day. You would build up my hopes so high with all your talk about changing and becoming better and finally loving me right, just to have who you really were win over in the end. It was wrong of me to want you to change, but it was wrong of you for feeding me so many false promises to keep me there. It’s not just your fault and it’s not just mine. There’s no point in pointing fingers. It  was tragic and we both suffered. I know we have both said sorry so many times but no words can really repair all of the damage. There are some things that are out of our hands, and healing is one of those.

I had a dream last night that I met you somewhere and the two of us were able to  talk so intimately, just like old times. You even held me in your arms and I felt the spark inside of me that I haven’t experienced since we broke up. You painted the image of yourself that I so longed for you to be with every word you spoke. And just like old times, I believed every word you said, not because you deserved my trust but more because I wanted to believe you so badly. As I sat there in your arms, an all too familiar ache that I haven’t experienced in months upon months, crept into my heart and grew stronger and stronger until it was all I could feel. The feeling was so strong it stayed with me even after I awoke. It was the same ache I felt just after the “high”, as “He” slipped from my fingers to disappear.  It was a sense of doom, sorrow, and loss. It was almost despair, like everything I hoped for would never actually come into existence, not even for a moment. My day dream would never be more than a day dream. When I woke to the reality we’ve created where we don’t exist in each other’s worlds, I felt an even greater sorrow come over me knowing it was true. “You” were never more than a day dream to me and now you are gone.

The other strange part about it all was how the dream ended. I was just about to ask you if you missed me at all, the way I missed you. You know, not in a I-still-think-of-you-everyday sort of way, but I wanted to know if there’s still a part of your heart that wishes that day dream had come true and things could have worked out between us. It doesn’t even have to be a big part. You could even have it locked away between giant metal doors with hundreds of locks and chains. I just wanted to know if it was there, if there was at least a tiny sliver still present in reality. I wanted to know I mattered, I still existed to you in some part of your heart – even if it’s just a desire for completely platonic friendship. But just as I was about to ask you if you missed me in any way, shape, or form – I rolled over in my bed and woke up from my dream.

Honestly, I felt like crying. Even though I know the answer wouldn’t have actually been you but really just a dream version of you from my subconscious, I still wanted to know your answer SO BADLY, it didn’t matter.

It bugs me that I care so much. I don’t want to. Why would it matter what you think of me? My value doesn’t rest in you AT ALL. Yet, there’s part of me that feels like I am dead to you, or as I said earlier, I don’t exist in your world at all. You’re SUPPOSED to miss people! Each person is an intricate, unrepeatable, irreplaceable masterpiece. When a person dies it is tragic. He is a face of God that will never be experienced on this side of reality again. This is rightly sorrowful. If I really am dead to you, you should miss me, right? Why are you so fine with living in a world without me after living in a world where you knew me so intimately? It makes me feel like I never mattered at all and I am not irreplaceable, and…I do not exist.

The reality is I may never know the answers to these questions, and I don’t need to. You still exist to me and I should love you for who you are even though I didn’t do that while we were dating. Let me pray for you when you come to mind. Let me hope in the greatest Hope of all, that we will be united again in the perfect union of the Trinity when we reach heaven. Let me rest in the peace that we are both in the Blessed Trinity as I write this now. God bless you.

Love Truly,

Sarah