I saw you again today, for the first time in six months. You look the same, just as I remembered. But your voice. It was like the past reached out to me, and that sound -- once so familiar, but now a distant memory -- grabbed my ears and heart once again.
How can I not feel emotionally charged when we share such a deep, rich past? When you were my first everything -- love, kiss, lover, partner. You were my family. You were my family's family. So many memories, so many years, so much shared. I can never -- will never -- just let that go. I'm sure time will soften emotions, but seeing you and thinking about you -- and especially the past -- is still so unsettling... so emotional... so multi-layered and complex.
I love you. I will always love you. You were a part of me for 15 years. That doesn't just go away. Will it ever go away? I'm sure all these things will fade -- the emotions, the pain, the sadness, the grief, the memories that strike without warning. And I'm sure you experience it, too. But I don't want to stuff it away. I want to honor it for what it was because it was my life and yours -- and what I intended as my future. What you intended as yours, and we as ours.
So now I honor the past, I honor me and you, and who we were and the memories we made and the experiences we shared and the joy and the pain and the grief and the brokenness and the heartache and the letting go and the moving on.
The unthinkable, unimaginable, but yet, the do-able.
The transition and the newness and the next step and next chapter.
Because this is life -- this pain and confusion and messiness and complexity and these can't-be-labeled-or-explained-or-fit-in-a-neat-box emotions are real life. I'm living it and you're living it, and we're part of a greater human experience. We're not alone.
We'll get through it and move on and re-experience it and heal and remember and heal some more... and keep going forward.
And we'll love again and live again and make new memories... and keep on going.
The future is uncertain. But the past is set. And while a lot of it was tough, so much was good. It made me who I am today and you who you are. Let's honor that. Now and forever.