All The Things I Wish I Could Tell You

It’s midnight again, and you are the only thing on my mind.

I’m sitting here wondering how it could already be three years since we last saw each other. It is almost my birthday, and I can’t help but hope that maybe you will reach out to me. Maybe you will call and serenade me with that stupid birthday song you swore you would sing to me on my next birthday all of those years ago.

I always knew deep down though that you wouldn’t. I knew that our time together was fleeting. I knew that no matter how badly I wanted you to stay in my life that ultimately, you were going to leave. I knew that you were going to go home to Miami, while I stayed here in Chicago. I knew that we would go back to being strangers, even after all of the time we spent getting so close to each other. You would move on with your life, while I tried to do the same. I wonder if you have done a better job of that than I have.

I like to think that I cross your mind as frequently as you do mine, but most of the time, I just feel delusional for ever thinking that. You cut me out of your life for a reason. And even though I may never know that reason, I will always know that it was what you wanted.

You didn’t want to see what I was doing with my life once you left. And you didn’t want me to see what you were doing with yours. There would be no more celebrating each other’s milestones. No more funny memes and bad jokes. We would go back to being meaningless to each other. I would become just another face from a place where you used to live, and you would never have to think of me again.

Is this really what you wanted?

It has all been so difficult for me to understand. One day you tell me that I will always have a home where you are, and then just a few days later, you cut me out of your life for good. I always thought that we were closer than that. I know that we didn’t know each other for that long, but the connection we had was stronger than anything I had ever had with anyone else. I never expected a drunken stranger on the train to become one of the most important love stories of my life.

How many people can say that someone ran off of a train at a stop that wasn’t theirs just to ask them out? It still feels like it was a scene out of a movie. Sometimes, it doesn’t feel like anything between us was even real. How many of these emotions have I just made up in my own head?

Did you ever feel the same way that I did?

I swear the day that you went and got me breakfast before you went to class and I went to work was one of the best days of my entire life. It might sound silly to someone who is used to that sort of thing, but to me, it meant everything. Every moment with you meant more to me than these words could ever do justice to. I never expected someone I was never in an actual relationship with to treat me so well, but you were always so full of surprises.

The night we first met, I knew that you were someone special. I knew that you were different from anyone else I had ever met before. I will never forget that date. April 13, 2017. Regardless of if we ever speak again, I will always remember that date as the day I was reminded that love is still out there. There are a lot of shitty people out there, but then, there are also people like you. People who care so deeply and love so passionately, even when they know that time is not on their side. People who can make the most mundane moments amazing. People who will show you that it is okay to love again after you’ve been hurt.

I swear that I have thought of you every day since we first met, and I don’t think I will ever stop. You showed me more love in just a year of knowing each other than I ever felt in my multiple-year relationship with the person who supposedly wanted to marry me. I don’t think I will ever be able to thank you enough for the way that you treated me. Even when things got messy, you didn’t lash out at me. You stayed calm, just like you always did.

I just hope that you know how sorry I am for everything that happened between us. I am so sorry that I didn’t speak up sooner and tell you what my actual feelings about our situation were. I am sorry that I wrote the harsh, anger-fueled words that I did and had them published for the entire world to see. I’m so sorry if I ever made you feel like I hated you or regretted my time with you.

If I had the choice to do it all over again, even if I knew we would never be able to be together long-term, I would still choose you. I would still choose you for whatever time you would give me because that is how much you meant to me.

Thank you for seeing me in ways that no one else has ever been able to. Thank you for showing me what true love and affection are actually like. Thank you for spending the little time that you had left in this city with me.

Our time together meant everything to me.

And so did you.