Have you ever met someone who just gets you… understands you… completes you?

Someone who, although you were in your darkest hour, made you feel like you were doing exactly what you were meant to do and being everything you were meant to be.

A person who free’d your heart from the shackles of shame and allowed you to begin living your life again. Someone who made you feel like you were in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and in that moment, nothing else mattered.

I can’t imagine it happens more than a few times through the course of our lives.

If we are lucky, we recognize the importance of this person before it is too late. But unfortunately, I feel like all-too-often, we are left looking back, wishing we had done more, wishing we had fought harder, plead stronger and held on longer.

“What do you do when this person leaves your life? How do you move forward?”

What if you were the one who walked away, knowing the pain you would cause and conversely have to endure?

What if you understood that the only way to move forward was to move on?

What if you were wrong?

I need you to know this.

In my darkest hour we met, and shortly thereafter, I left.

You might never know how much it hurt me, how many tears I spilled, wondering if I had made the right decision; the sleep I lost thinking about you.

The sleep I still lose thinking about you.

I don’t know if I will ever publish this but if I do and you happen to read it then I need you to know these things.

I will always love you!

I was so lost, wandering through life. Unwilling or unable to move past all that had happened before. Stuck, as if frozen in time, clinging to pain and darkness as if it was all I had left.

But, you knew the way. You taught me to forget. You replaced those memories.

You stood next to me when everyone else ran away. How will I ever express the debt I can never repay?

You fixed me. You rescued me from myself.

You didn’t reach down and try to pull me from the hole I was in, you climbed down and sat right next to me until I was ready to leave.

You showed me that no matter how hard it rained, we could always move past the pain.

You restored my hope in the world, pulled me back from the edge of a cliff and made me smile like I had never smiled before.

From the first time I saw you I loved you and you unlocked my heart with that first kiss.

You were exactly what I needed at exactly the right time.

I wish circumstances would have been different. Oh, what I would give to have things turn out differently but we both know that can never happen.

There is a part of my soul that will never heal from having let you into my life. I wonder if I will ever be able to feel completely whole again without that piece of me, but I would never ask for it back.

I would live in pain forever before risking an existence without the memory of you.

I am scared for the one who comes next.

I tell myself I am over you but part of me will always wait.

Like some sick romantic comedy I will move on, because that’s life, and eventually, time heals all pain, but you could come steal my heart at any time.

With one touch you could make me melt. I would be completely defenseless against your advance, and on that day, I would stand in the rubble and smile at having had one more moment with you.

I truly hope you are happy.

I hope you think of me on occasion.

Maybe one day our paths will cross again but for now I am going to try to forget you.

I am going to try to remember the worst of you so that I might have some chance at knowing happiness again.

But it will never work, I will never forget you.