My dearest S,

I’d like to say that after this past month, I’ve come to appreciate the decision you made to end the relationship we had.  While I was initially disillusioned I have come to realize at the time it was the best option for both of us to be able to move on. While I am profoundly happy to hold in my heart memories that we created, at the time I was not the person who was able to give you what you needed in the long term.

This was my first experience with true love, you gave me that and I will treasure it forever. Last February I would not have said to anyone that I was looking for love, then I met you, and I knew in the first few chances I got with you that this was something entirely different. I was so excited and a little scared of this, it was an entirely new idea to be able to retreat into your arms and stare into your eyes feeling completely loved. It’s been said before, but you made me feel like tourist in this city, each and every experience was something fresh and memorable.

When we met it was a busy, crazy, and exciting time in your life. What I got to see from February through the end of July helped define one of the strongest characters I have met in my life.  I was more than happy to be a part of that, whether it was helping you focus your mind where I could or just being a shoulder to cry on when the stress was all too daunting. I knew I just wanted to be around this beautiful and passionate person as we allowed our love to grow.

Passion and honesty in all acts of life, this is an important mantra, but so rarely is it fully realized. For me, putting these words into practice has led to some of the greatest things in my life.  However, I’ve been through a stretch of time where I lost focus on that for myself. I let fear creep in and define portions of my life that led to things that hurt my own outlook as well as our relationship.  In short, I was not taking responsibility for things that I had complete control over.

When we last spoke on the phone, you told me this, you said this in a way that hurt me at first, but truthfully it is rare that things like this can be brought up and not cause some kind of hurt.  My immediate reaction was to go on the defensive rather than acknowledge the thoughts you were having behind your words.

I was in several areas behaving irrationally, and it took this wake up call to realize this.  Whether involving the lack of quality work running through my office, and not seeking out the creative/philosophical motivation that has made me happy through most of my twenties.  Or a lack of self worth in how I presented myself to yourself and to others, like having a consistently clean room that we could call home, or shoes that were not filled with holes, or clean clothes.  Most importantly was my lack of ability to consistently follow through with things to help you feel more secure in my desire to make this long term.  I was more than happy to deliver romantic gestures that, while fun, to some degree subconsciously veiled what was most important.

I needed time to myself to reconstruct this part of my life by setting simple and long term goals. My biggest desire in working on these things is to live a positive life that is built around the best in people around me and the best in myself. Through this I am making tangible positive change in these areas of my life, most importantly starting with the fact that I will not allow fear to dictate my decisions in life.

With that in mind — Hi Sarah, I love you, I’ve loved you since I first met you, It’s just taken me this long to catch up with what that is. I do not see you as a piece of my history to simply move past, rather you are someone that deserves a wild, veracious love. I do not see you as a short term commitment, rather someone who I would love to build a life with.  I do not see this love as something worth only scratching the surface, rather this is a love where we can peel back each others layers — laughing together, crying together, helping each other through our hardest times and building each other up to achieve our goals.  I do not see you as someone I would ever want to lay stagnant with, rather you are someone worth growing for and growing with. I do not see this as something to run from, rather something to retreat into and contribute to completely.

True love is absolute and is worth fighting for. I know that we cannot simply reset a clock, and I would never want to.  Being apart has given me time to refocus what I want in my life personally and romantically. As I explored this I understood that my love for you was not changing, and is one hundred percent worth pursuing. In the end these are only words on a page, only action can ever express any of this. If you feel some piece of this love is still true, then I would simply ask you on a date, and let this grow simply and beautifully.

Truly and Absolutely yours,

C