To My Almost Lover, I Wish You Well
On meeting my soulmate and letting go.
“I’m leaving tomorrow. Going back to Dallas.”
His message stopped me short.
“For good?”, I asked.
“I think so.”
I met him on a dating app and from the moment he said hello, we had that instant connection. We talked about movies and art and food and travel until the wee hours of the morning. The days that followed seemed short because we never ran out of things to talk about.
With him, I found a new best friend.
I only met him twice in person, but there was this strange familiarity with him that I couldn’t quite understand. Cheesy as it may sound, and at 37, I was not one to believe in soulmates — but I felt like I’ve known him forever.
“Did you know there are 10 stars for every grain of sand?”, he asked.
I shook my head no.
We were at the beach waiting for the sun to rise. He scooped some sand on his hands and looked at me with his piercing blue eyes.
“I’m holding a million stars on my hand. A million suns. Can you believe that?”
“Sand and Stars, Franky, Sand and Stars.”
I kept repeating it in my head. For some reason, the last words stuck with me. I pondered on the meaning of sand and stars and how it related to our existence. For him, it was simple. He believed we were merely existing — we eat, we fuck, we die. It doesn’t go any deeper than that. The thought honestly depressed me. If we’re not even a speck of dust in the Universe, but we are alive, there must be a reason why. We argued about it, but in the end, we agreed to disagree.
I, the optimist and he, the realist.
He scoffed at me for being a Catholic and why I had post-its on my wall or why I read self-help books. He thought the film I made from college was crap, yet I took no offense and joined along in the laughter.
He made me laugh — that must be it. The magic sauce.
And now, he’s leaving.
“I feel like I’ve known you for a long time. I think we’re lucky we met.”
I nodded and smiled in response.
Somehow I knew there was some truth to it because that was exactly how I felt at that moment. People come and go in our lives, but there are those that will make our hearts ache with longing of what could have been.
Perhaps what we had was karmic. He doesn’t believe in reincarnation, but I do. He thinks it’s absurd, but for someone who thinks we’ve known each other forever — funny how he doesn’t believe in the next life.
Having someone leave is still painful. This brought back memories of an ex-boyfriend that left and said he was coming back for me. I thought it would be easier this time, but it wasn’t. At least with this one, I know he’s never coming back. Some relationships end with a comma and some end with a period.
This was a period.
Who knows if our paths will ever cross again?
We didn’t spend much time together to say that we had something to fight for. It was too soon. We were only two passing ships. We found each other because we had to learn from each other.
We are made of stars, we are interconnected in ways beyond our realm of understanding. We are whole, but not yet complete. There are things we are looking for thinking we’ll find them in each other.
The truth is, we need to meet, so we can come face to face with our own worst enemy — ourselves.
I cry for what is, what was and what could have been. I cry because the good ones always leave. I’ll never really outgrow love. Just when I think I’ve gotten it this time, it eludes me again.
As I write this, I can hear Radiohead’s Motion Picture Soundtrack playing softly in the background, the last few lines echoing in the night.
I think you’re crazy, maybe
I think you’re crazy, maybe
I will see you in the next life.
