“I didn’t lose you. You lost me. You’ll search for me inside everyone you’re with and I won’t be found.” ~ R.H. Sin

~

Perhaps you are irreplaceable, but maybe it really doesn’t matter.

There was a time when I cried salty tears, knowing that I’d never again meet someone like you. You were a man I was magnetically drawn to so that even time or heartbreak couldn’t undo our connection. You were someone who danced with my soul long before I ever met you in this lifetime.

If we didn’t work out, I used to wonder how I would I ever find love again.

But then I learned that none of us find love, but that love finds us.

I don’t think I will never find a love like yours again. This thought used to break me in two, because if I couldn’t have the fire like the one we created, then perhaps I would remain cold forever.

Yet, now I see that no one is truly like anyone else, and maybe it’s not an issue of finding someone better, just different.

I never wanted to move on from you. I never wanted to give another man the chance to steal my heart in all of the ways that you did so beautifully. But when it came down to it, you told me to go.

All of our moments—under the summer moon, evening escapades where we came alive with the colors of autumn, and the real quietness our bodies spoke to each other as the snowflakes fell softly against the cold window pane—came down to a decision.

A choice: Would we venture into more or hesitate back into nothingness.

It terrified me because I knew that no one else would ever be like you. No one else would have the power to peer into my soul and see all the places I hide from love and from myself. No one would feel the way that your soul does against mine. It hurts that sometimes we find something so incredible, but it will never be truly ours—it will never actually stay.

Perhaps I was optimistic to think that one day you would choose to take that final step toward me. The step that barred your heart, showing exactly who I was to you and maybe even why you’d fought it for so long.

But the reality is, you never did.

So that space, that moment in time when I was waiting for you to step into us, was lost beneath the snows of winter. It was forgotten, and with it, just how close we’d gotten to having everything we’d always wanted—everything we could have been.

And so I left in your precious hands what the next page would be, and though I had been hoping for a different ending, the one you wrote still left me feeling your love.

So, I ventured out into this great big world and decided to see if I could let another into the place in my heart that you’d occupied for so long. I took a chance, and instead of seeing what my heart wanted, I opened my eyes to what was right in front of me.

He’s not you and he never will be, but maybe it’s okay.

Maybe we are only granted a feeling, like the one you always brought me, once in a lifetime. Maybe we aren’t meant to be with the person who rattles down our walls and wakes us up to ourselves.

Maybe there are a lot of maybes, but I suppose that’s what happens when nothing is certain.

I don’t know who this man will end up being in my life, but as you’ve said to me countless times, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” so I suppose I will just continue to build. I’m not hoping that someday I’ll feel for him what I feel for you because I know that even if it grows into something beautiful, it will be different.

I used to hesitate at finding someone different. I used to fear it. Yet, when we let go of what we want and welcome what is happening, we realize that anything meant to be ours will never have to be fought for. I gave up long ago trying to convince you of anything, and while I still may get lost in your eyes, I’m no longer lost in our storyline.

There will never be another man like you in my entire life. Each new person I meet only reaffirms this for me, yet I refuse to stop living just because you don’t want to be here with me. I won’t collect dust and become stagnant, but most of all, I won’t stop loving just because you couldn’t love me.

He’s not better than you, although you’ve hoped I would find someone who is, but he is different. His eyes don’t pierce mine, yet they still draw me in. His arms don’t feel like home, but perhaps I can still find comfort here. His voice doesn’t wake me up to something unseen from the rest of the world, yet maybe it’s one I can still learn the language of.

He’s not you, but maybe I will come to need him.

I never wanted to imagine a time when I would let another in, but with your encouragement I have. While I may never find love in another like the one I found in you, I still have hope that one day love will find me.

I do know that I am destined for love, regardless whether you choose to love me or not. So, while I know that he may never be you, I’m starting to see that maybe it’s okay.

Because in the end, love is just love.

~

Author: Kate Rose

Image: Flickr/TheNightRaven 

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock