I would like to take my heart back

The night I met you all I could do is roll my eyes at your silliness and wish you’d leave me alone. Two days later I was really grateful that you didn’t. My eye rolls turned into smiles, my one word answers turned into conversations that lasted for hours, and when your stakes for winning a bet was a kiss from me, the only response I had was, “If I win, so do you.”

I still remember that first kiss, under the clear African sky. You brushed the hair out of my eyes, tilted my chin upwards and leaned down for your lips to meet mine. For few moments I felt as though the world around us was spinning, but the moment stood still at the same time. My skin tingled as you wrapped your arms around my waist and drew me close to you. When we finally pulled away, all I could say, through the giant grin on my face, was “Wow.”

I cherished every moment I spent with you in the following few months. I remember staring out at the night sky with you, counting the stars and looking for Orion’s belt. Back then I didn’t realise that for a few years after that, every time I looked up at Orion’s belt, I’d think of you. I did realise that night, when I looked over at you as you talked about constellations that I had fallen in love with you. It wasn’t something I planned, or expected, but it made me the happiest I remember being in a long time.

I loved being with you, mostly because of the way you made me feel. I could just be myself around you, and for you, that was enough. You loved the way I laughed, my cheeky responses to you and even my defiant nature. I loved the way I felt secure in the comfort of your presence in my life. You made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. A woman you respected, cared about, and a woman who made you feel as though your life lacked for nothing when you were with her. You embraced my carefree nature, even when I stopped the traffic of parking lot when I jumped out of my car and ran to yours for one more kiss before we parted for the night. I’m still not sure whether the hoots from the other cars were those of appreciation for romance, or those of annoyance. I placed my heart in your hands, and it felt safe and natural to do so. I was never concerned about you ever betraying me, chasing other girls behind my back, or lying to me. You never made me feel not good enough, and you never behaved in a manner that made me question how you felt about me.

And then you decided to leave. I know that the decision wasn’t to leave me. You were leaving to pursue your dreams, your career, and that meant leaving the country and me. I knew I couldn’t ask you to stay. I was proud of your accomplishments and loved you enough to never hold you back. You are still my longest break up. The hours we spent sitting in the parking lot after the restaurant had closed, talking things through and trying to figure out the situation were heart-breaking for me. There really was no other way, except to say good bye. And eventually we did.

I cried myself to sleep for months after that, and when I found out that you had met someone and were engaged, I went through that heart break all over again. It wasn’t that I was jealous, or I felt the other girl had something I didn’t, I cried over the incredible love that was now lost forever.

As the months passed, the heart ache subsided. The pictures of you and your family no longer left me with a pang of hurt in the pit of my stomach, they were replaced with happiness. I was happy for you. Happy that you found love, happy that you succeeded in your career, happy that you achieved your dreams. It meant that the heartache wasn’t for nothing, you went ahead and achieved everything you talked about. I was proud of you.

My life didn’t stand still either. I dated, a few years after we broke up I got married and started my own family. I didn’t find the happiness that I had hoped to. A decade after our break up, after one failed marriage and a few unsuccessful relationships later, I would like to ask you for my heart back. As difficult as it is to admit, even the person I married didn’t make me feel the way you did. Perhaps I treasured our relationship so much that I simply settled. Maybe I was terrified of having that kind of love again because I knew the pain of real heartbreak. So I settled. I settled for the man who constantly wanted to change me. I settled for the man who made me feel not good enough for him. I settled for the man who lied. I settled for the man who not once in our relationship woke me up with delicate butterfly kisses across my back. So I have decided to take my heart back, stop settling, and experience that kind of love again. I deserve to be with someone who makes the same amount of effort as you did to be with me and spend time with me. I deserve better thank to be someone’s random fling and or other woman. I deserve better than to settle again. I deserve to have the love that you and I shared, and rather than be afraid of it, embrace it.

-�