- Joined
- Aug 20, 2022
- Messages
- 29,376
- Points
- 113
It's Over
I wasn't looking for this. You reached out to me, and something about you made me curious enough to try. So I did. We talked, and I came to see you. And you were unlike any woman I've ever had the chance to meet. In every specific way that mattered to me. Not that I had some checklist, but you somehow checked all the boxes I hadn't even written down yet.
The only problem was that you were married... and you didn't know when that would change. I knew that going in, this is true. I made that choice with my eyes open, and I can't lay that at anyone's feet but mine.
I wish I was built differently, and that you hadn't made me feel the way that I did. That I could have held some part of myself back, in reserve. But that's not how I work. And some part of me knew that going in too. I fell hard and I fell fast and I fell completely, as I often do. But this time, it was with you. And.. somewhere, along the way, without any fanfare or announcement, I fell in love with you.
You occupied my thoughts in a way no one else had in a long time. Probably ever. Not in a consuming, anxious way. But in the way that feels like warmth. Like home. I'd be in the middle of something ordinary and find myself thinking of your laugh. I'd catch myself imagining a future that hadn't been promised, and it didn't feel like fantasy. It felt like something I deserved. That I was allowed to want.
I envisioned us together in the small ways, not just the grand ones. Mornings. Coffee. You nearby while I worked. Coming home to the same address. Learning your rhythms and you mine. I wanted to be with you every single day in the most ordinary of ways. I can't explain the number of times I imagined you walking through my house with me.
That's what is going to make this so hard to put down. It wasn't just you. It was everything I could see so clearly when I looked at us. And I still see it. That's the honest truth. If you find your footing, if you finally do what you need to do and make the decisions you need to make, then come find me. I'll still be here. That hasn't changed, because I love you. I don't know if that makes any of this easier or more complicated, but it's true and you deserve to know it.
I don't know if that makes me hopeful, or just hanging onto something I know I'm not allowed to have, I don't know. But you're the one that left the door open. I'm not sure it matters, because it's where I am.
You were real. What we had was real. And I'm still sitting here with all of it, not knowing what comes next. Still wanting the thing I wanted from the very beginning.