The Heartbreaking Truth About Almost Loves

I decided to stop calling you an “almost love.”

It’s always seemed to make the most sense as your title, but it’s been so over-used that even letting the syllables roll off my tongue makes it go numb. There is no feeling there, there is no pained nostalgia in those words.

So, I started looking at us as parallel lines. The way we have always continued to grow in the same direction, though the distance between us would come and go. Yet we both always seemed to be trying to figure ourselves out- creatively, emotionally, spiritually, and every other facet possible- and we just seemed to get that about each other. Maybe that’s why we kept coming back into the same gravity, back into places where our lines ran closer together.

But maybe we were just never meant to intersect.

I think we came close, sometimes it seemed like we both might collide into something bigger and bolder and more beautiful. We would be fractions of centimeters apart, where if you stood back far enough you might be able to fool someone into thinking they blurred together. You might not even notice the space.

But there was always a space, wasn’t there?

There was always just enough room to fit another excuse or reason why it just wouldn’t work out. Always enough space to claim as our own- the buffer to keep anything we worked towards from becoming real. No amount of alcoholic confessions, heartfelt words, or good intentions were enough to close that gap. And so we stayed suspended. We stayed apart.

Parallel lines have been known to be good for many things. They remind me of railroad tracks that trains use to reach their destinations, places that they need to go. Maybe we were just meant to help push our dreams along, and get us to the places we needed to go. Maybe we just needed to have the comfort and looking beside us and seeing someone who understood us in ways few other honestly did.

Yet when it’s all said and done, there is nothing romantic about trains. Or parallel lines.

Or us.