I love you.
I’m sure you won’t forget that time I told you that it was always going to be you. How despite everything that has happened, how despite so many people to have come into our lives since then, how despite the many changes that you and I have had as individuals – it’s always going to be you. And I know you haven’t forgotten that because that’s not something that anyone would just be able to forget.
That’s not the kind of confession that someone would be able to push aside nonchalantly to the corners of their mind. That’s not a memory that anyone would be able to suppress. I meant it when I said it back then and I still mean it now. You matter so much to me. You occupy a space in my soul that no other person could possibly inhabit. I told you that you had such a significant impact on my life to the point that I was changed forever because of you.
I told you a lot of things, actually. And while those may have been difficult to process, I’m sure you tried your best to understand where I was really coming from. But I’m also sure that you didn’t. It would have been impossible for you to really grasp the subtext; the depth of the message that I was trying to convey to you. And it’s probably because I never said those three words. But I’m saying it now.
I love you.
I want you to know that I didn’t take an abrupt exit from your life just because I didn’t think that you were worth taking a chance on. I didn’t choose to end things just because I had a change of mind about your worth in my life. I didn’t withdraw myself from the narrative just because I had a change of heart. I didn’t make the conscious choice to exclude myself from your life because I stopped loving you. I never stopped loving you and I’m not sure I ever will. I only chose to walk away from you because I know it’s what you needed me to do. I walked away from us because that’s really the only thing you deserved from me – freedom. I knew that if I forced my love on you, you would completely lose your freedom. I would have loved you too much; almost to the point of making you feel suffocated and controlled. I would have loved you too much to the point where it would have been overbearing. I would have loved you to the point of fear – where I would be too afraid of losing you and so I would try my best to isolate you from anyone else. And I didn’t want that for you. I didn’t want to do that to you. I didn’t want to have to force you to love me the way that I love you. And I knew it was impossible for you to ever love me the way that I love you on your own accord. Because as much as I would have loved for you to fall in love with me the way that I want, I love you more when you’re just being yourself. And you wouldn’t be yourself if you felt coerced to fall in love with me as well. I wanted you to be your own person – the person I fell in love with; the person I’m still in love with. I love you so much to the point where I’m always going to be willing to place your own personal happiness above my own. I love you too much where I would willingly let myself get hurt just to make sure that you never have to feel pain for the rest of your life. I love you too much so I’m just going to let you go even though I want nothing more than to keep you safe and secure in the warmth of my embrace.
It’s painful – but I know that it’s what’s right.
And at the end of the day, I think that that’s the true essence of love. It’s not always going to be about getting what you want or doing whatever you like. Ultimately, love is always going to be about what feels right – and it wouldn’t have felt right for me to force things between us. And I find myself stuck in this paradox of loving you – and it’s that love precisely that is keeping me from forcing you to be with me. I have to be strong with my convictions on this. I can’t turn back now. And I don’t want to. I love you and that’s never going to change. And so I also know that that means that we are probably never going to be together; and that’s okay.