You
I say none of this to offend you or hurt your feelings. I say it because it’s on my mind and it’s better for me to let these things out than bottle them up and explode on you in one fit of rage and hurt.
Now is the time I begin to lose you. I recognize that I will slowly feel you start to slip away through my fingertips, leaving only the residue of past memories and fantasies on my hands.
I’ve known I would lose you. Ever since December, the ticking time clock began. The time until you leave. The time I have left to be yours.
I know, starting now and continuing on, I will be lower on your priority list. I know you will get caught up in the life, the people, the classes, the experience. I don’t say this to upset you. I say it because I am recognizing that it’s true, and inevitable. When we are separated for weeks at a time and you are in a new environment with new surroundings, it’s inevitable. That’s why I’ve spent the summer cherishing the attention, love, and care I’ve gotten from you.
I have tried to take pictures of us every time we go somewhere, or see each other, to document the beautiful memories we made over the summer. Every time I saw you, I held you a little tighter, looked into your eyes a little longer, and paid attention to every detail of your being. I have appreciated the lines in each of your muscles while you lift, move, and hold me. I have appreciated your smile and the way your lips curl up and out when you laugh. I have looked into those shining sea eyes of yours like it’s the end, because I know I will never see anything so beautiful in this life. I have appreciated the words you speak and how you speak them, your inflections, and everything you say. I have held your arms tighter than ever before, because I wanted to soak up all of you that I could while you still loved me most. When you sung to me in the car, I stayed silent even if I loved singing the song because I wanted to appreciate the way your voice sounds when you sing, and the fact that you were singing to me. Just to me.
I made love to you stronger. I made love to you harder. I looked you in the eyes and felt our bodies and souls interconnected even more intensely than ever before because I needed to soak up as much love as I could. And boy, was it beautiful. Overwhelming, intense, and passionate. I could have left the earth right after those moments and felt perfectly content. It hurts so much to know that could be gone.
I learned to refrain from talking about my own life as much. I wouldn’t ever want to take away from the excitement and new life you were about to embark on, so I began sharing less and less to you. Again, I’m not saying this to hurt your feelings, so don’t put the blame on yourself for this. I didn’t want to take away from anything you were experiencing.
I saw myself lose you in bits and pieces among these past few months. I saw your excitement shift from me to this new journey. Which is great, and you should be expected to be going through those changes. Don’t let yourself put me first. However, it still broke me just the same. As you began checking your email every hour during the weeks before leaving, spending your time preparing and becoming more and more interested in the life you were about to have, inquiring less about my upcoming second-year journey, I saw myself losing you.
It’s okay, really. I don’t know how or why I should have expected to stay among the highest of importance to you when you have such a great new thing coming. And when you have loved this new thing before it even became official. I would love for us to get past this, to make it, but four years is a very long time. You always say I should be honest with you, so here’s me being honest. I don’t know how we’re going to do it. Believe me, I want to make it, more than anything, I just don’t know if that is a feasible request and reasonable thought to have. For now, I will keep living in the fantasy, and trusting you completely, but you have to understand that the past several months for me have been filled with appreciation and with realization that what we might have, which is wonderful, beautiful, and rare, could come to an end soon.
I love you more than anything, and I hope I’m wrong.
