“Who knows how long I’ve loved you,
you know I love you still,
will I wait a lonely lifetime?
If you want me to I will”

I remember the first time I saw you. It was as if there was everything else in the world and then there was you. You looked as though you had stepped out of the golden age of Hollywood…..a gorgeous, timeless beauty. Then I got to know you and you were like no one I had ever met. Smart, funny, intelligent, kind, with a heart of gold and a spirit that shone bright as the sun. I had waited all my life for you and I didn’t even know it. You were better than anything I ever could have imagined……because you were you.

Those early days play in my mind like a summers dream. Talking for hours, The letters to Europe, the flowers I put on your car, our first date, where we kissed until dawn. Then watching the sunrise holding you in my arms. I fell in love with you so quickly. You ignited something within me that I had never felt before. You opened up the deepest parts of my heart and soul…..the parts that were always reserved just for you. You were the love of my life. You came and lit up every part of my life and brought the color into my world.

The earliest days were so filled with love and passion. Those late night goodbyes, extended and prolonged just so we could spend even another second together. So many amazing and extravagant experiences. Conversations about everything under the sun. Holding you in bed at night in my arms, listening to you breathe and thanking the universe for bringing you into my life. All the messages and phone calls. Making love with passion and attraction like nothing I had ever felt, wild and free, abandoned to lust and the depths of intimacy. But also the quiet moments, the everyday life that became extraordinary. Whether it be those big vacations or just holding you in my arms as we watched TV. Every moment felt perfect.

Then as we grew closer and fell deeper in love, beginning to learn to communicate, to nurture and protect that love. The long conversations. The fights. The reconciliations. Hopes and dreams for the future. Children’s names, wedding plans, a life growing old together. That feeling of being so comfortable and so safe with you. The days when all I wanted was to be yours and you mine. To take care of you, to make you feel like the most important extraordinary amazing individual you were every moment I could. Taking every chance to show you, to tell you, to remind you how madly in love I was with you. The days when you echoed the exact same with your gorgeous smile and sweet voice. We were the architects of our own world……a world that only we saw, a world only we knew. A world that we filled every inch of it with deep pure amazing love for so long.

Madly in love after one and a half years, I remember like it was yesterday finally striking out on our own on the biggest adventure of our lives. Heading west to pursue our dreams. You to become an actress, to stake your claim on Hollywood. Me to follow, to encourage and love you every step of the way. I remember how it was going to be perfect. Until it wasn’t. That first month so amazing. The world ahead of us, living in a new city, in a new state, the electricity of possibility flowing though our veins. Never had we been more in love. Then the reality set in. Our lives would be very different. You with your family, transferred job, friends, opportunities. Me with no job, a pretty rough place to live and knowing no one. But that is what you do for such an amazing love you take risks. It was good, it was different, but it was still our rare special love, even if it was a new place.

Then the call came…cancer. The world turned upside down in an instant. The horror and terror began to creep in. But the love kept it away. We still kept building, we laughed, we cried and we held onto love. He got worse. I couldn’t understand how he could get worse so quickly. At the same time the countless applications, the interviews, the job hunt was leading nowhere. You wanted me to establish myself, to build a life for myself. But I was caught between two worlds. Cancer ate away not only at my father, but my family and my life. In those two horrible months between that call and his death with each day came more pain. He was dying. A year, 6 months, 3 months, 1 month, next week. All of the sudden life was different. Life was about terror, fear and coping. But we held onto love. You supported me. You kissed me and told me it would be ok. You let me go home to be there for my family, to say goodbye. Then just like that, he was gone. Diagnosis to death 3 months.

You were loving, you were kind, you were generous and supporting. I tried to be strong. To show you and tell you and remind you how much I loved you. To call, to message, to video and send presents. Anything to keep our love as a priority even from across the country. I tried so hard to be there for you…..even if you may not have thought I was doing enough. But I also tried to be there for my family….I thought that is what I needed to do. To be the rock for everyone. I still believed in our love so much. I still loved you so much. But I couldn’t be everything to everyone no matter how hard I tried. The death changed things. It changed everyone. Life was forever different.

Then came the grief like a brutal tidal wave I tried to keep contained. As I returned and we celebrated two years I was sure things would get better. I assured you I would build a life. I would be there, I would love you, I would take care of you and I would do everything I could to be with you. You wanted me to be happy again to be excited and hopeful. But the fresh grief ate away at me. The dark clouds of major depression and anxiety rolled in before I even knew what to call them. I tried so hard to fight them off, to keep going, to be strong. I wanted so much to be better, to be happy, to make things like they used to be. I wanted to give you the life you deserved. I tried. I really did. I still loved you. I still tried to show you, I still told you that you were the most amazing special one of a kind person, the love of my life. I wanted to make life better so much, but I couldn’t. All I had to give then was my love, but it wasn’t enough.

Then you left. 3 months after his death you left. The world collapsed, it imploded even more. I know the grief, the depression and the darkness was so hard on you. I wanted to make it better. I wanted to be better so bad. I wanted to sweep you off your feet and take you amazing places. I wanted to take care of you like you wanted. I still loved you with every piece of me, in the depths of my heart and soul. But you said love wasn’t enough. I was too sad. I didn’t have a life built. I couldn’t take care of you. You needed something more. But you still believed in that love partly, you would be back. But for now all I had to offer was love and love wasn’t going to be enough.

As I sat in that room in California all alone…grieving, majorly depressed, completely devastated and brokenhearted, I held onto love. Because I still loved you just the same. You were still the love of my life. I still wanted to marry you, to be together again and to find our way through the darkness. You said we could. It would just take time. I hated it but it is what you wanted. So I accepted it. I wanted you to be happy, to heal and to do anything you need to do. I still believed in our love just the same and I would wait for you.

In those following months after you had told me to move back I tried so hard to still show you and tell you how much I loved you. When you called and when you didn’t. When you wrote and when you didn’t. When you told me you loved me, but you couldn’t talk to me. Then when you did want to talk to me and you missed me so much. Every decision you made I tried to support. I tried to understand, I tried to tell you how much I still loved you and wanted to be with you. But I also tried to respect what you wanted. No matter how many times it broke my heart, no matter how hard it was for me, I still tried. I didn’t call or write when you asked me not to. But I did when you missed it. Because I still loved you so much. Then even eventually when you thought we should really move on, but continued to call and write. I tired. It’s what you wanted.

Even when you broke my heart into a million pieces as you told me you had found someone in the midst of all this. The same week you called to tell me you missed me so much. It made no sense, it devastated me, but I tried to accept it. I tried to tell you and show you how much I loved you. How thankful I was for our time together, how I hope you are so happy even if it wasn’t with me and how I am forever changed for the better by you. Because I was. I am. I still loved you. I still wanted to be with you. But you had chosen someone else, I accepted that. I wanted to respect that. So I walked away. But I still was madly in love with you.

Then there is now. Nearly 6 months since that day and 1 year since you left in California. I still find myself heartbroken. I still think of you everyday. I still wish so much it could have been what we had dreamed and planned. I wish you would have stayed. But I respect and accept that you have moved on. I know you wanted to stay friends but it was just too hard. I know you didn’t like that. You’ve written to say you missed me, when you came to town you wanted to see me to catch up and even told me that you still cared deeply for me. But I cant. I can’t keep doing it. As I told you it is just too hard and difficult. I just can’t now. But I still wish you the very best and hope you find lasting peace and happiness. I hope that you achieve and exceed all of you dreams. I do care so much for you. I didn’t say I still loved you. You are someone else’s girl. That is so so hard for me, but I respect that. That’s why I had to severe ties. I know you didn’t understand. I know you were sad and angry. But I had to. Its the only thing I know to do.

I still think of you everyday. I still miss you everyday. I still have dreams of you every night. I still love you. I still love you so much. I wonder if I always will. I wonder if I’ll just always have that love in my heart for you. I’ve long since stopped talking about it, no one knows and I keep it to myself. But its true. I still love you the same. It doesn’t matter how much sadness, heartbreak or pain you bring to my doorstep, I always probably will. I wanted you to be my wife. I wanted to spend my life with you. I love you unconditionally. It’s why I hope that you are so happy. It’s why I hope you achieve all your dreams and goals. I hope that your new guy is good to you and loving and kind. I hope he sees and reminds you how phenomenal and amazing you are by just being you. It breaks my heart that it wasn’t me. But I still want to see you happy.

I know it bothers you I’ve disappeared like I have. You will probably never know where I am or what I’m doing. I wont know about you either. That breaks my heart in many ways. I wish there was another way. I am still heartbroken we couldn’t spend the rest of our lives together like we had once dreamed and planned to. I guess that is the way life is sometimes. I have a lot of regrets about it all. I’ve gone to counseling for my grief, my depression and anxiety. I’ve gotten the help I needed. I’ve made peace with a lot of it and am working hard to manage the rest. I’m sorry for how those things effected you. I would change them if I could. I would have given anything to rid myself of them then, to have been able to pull myself out of that dark place. I often wonder if I hadn’t been so weighed down by those things, if only I could have been happier and stronger, If I had more to give besides just love……then maybe you wouldn’t have left. Maybe you would have stayed. If we would have been happy. I know I will never truly know.

I’m still heartbroken its true. That’s why I’m writing this. You won’t ever read it or know I did. But even if I’ve boarded up those parts of my heart and soul. Even if I’ve stopped talking about it. Even if I never mention it to another individual, I have put it out into the world. Which seems good. I don’t know if I will fall in love again. Maybe I will be alone forever. Maybe I will find someone else. But for now I’m still heartbroken. I wish you hadn’t left. I wish we could have been together. I wish life had been different. But no matter how sad it makes me now, no matter how much pain I feel. It was all worth it. I wouldn’t change a moment. It was such a beautiful amazing gift from life. Even though I wish it would have continued forever, I’m still so thankful for our time together. You really are the most amazing, wonderful, gorgeous, intelligent, interesting one of a kind person that I have ever met. You are deep as the ocean and bright as the sun. The world, the people around you and I am better because of you. I will always think that. My heart may be broken still, hell it may be broken forever, but it was worth it. Because I wouldn’t know the deep pain of loss without the deep joy of finding true, special one of a kind love.

“Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we’re together
Love you when we’re apart”

-S