To my heart’s ghost,

When you came into my life, I was stuck in a pattern of desperation.

Giving myself away, forgiving too easily.

Using my body to gain love and affection, but attention would suffice.

I carried this pattern into us. The time we spent together, I was always second-guessing. I was insecure even though you kept telling me not to be.

You were always saying, “Don’t doubt me.”

But, alas, I was too afraid to listen. I was afraid of the power of my connection to you and what it would feel like to lose you. Maybe, even then, I already knew. Ultimately, I think, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I can never be sure. The end still confuses me to this day.

I’m not even sure who really chose to end it, me or you, since the last time truly we spoke, I didn’t know it would be our last. You left my house, and I never heard from you again. Maybe (probably) it was just the universe’s timing—like so many things with you were.

For so many years, my body had been my tool, my power, and other people’s bodies my escape.

With you, it felt different—it was spiritual, and after that sex was never the same.

I didn’t want just anybody; I wanted you, or better.

It wasn’t about the sex.

It was about the way time stopped when I looked into your eyes and your fingers laced with mine.

It was about the way I felt when you were near, the peace that fell over my being when I looked at you, and shared space with you. The way I was always in the present when I spoke with you even when we were hundreds of miles apart. The timelessness of the moments we spent together. I can still be there if I close my eyes, even after years of not seeing or speaking to you.

There’s a peace I still feel even though we no longer speak, just because I know you are alive, and I think that you are happy where you are.

You gave me the strength to explore myself without someone else because you gave me standards to hold. You pushed up against my boundaries and made me realize what I need and what I want from another, and from myself. You helped me realize that I even had boundaries. I was just sh*tty about holding them.

I was no longer permitted the escape of another person because that was no longer an escape but torture unto itself. My longing for you that couldn’t be quenched forced me into a solitude that saved my life. It was the coals beneath my feet that pushed me along the road of spirituality, to be able to lift myself up out of this confusion.

You were my guiding light on the path to the other side. You triggered my every insecurity, but it wasn’t your fault. It was your job to hold a mirror to my face and hold the space to allow me to show myself what’s really in there, inside of me—my own shadow.

So many of our encounters, I spent the hour and a half drive to you telling myself it could be the last time I ever saw you and to make the most of it and to just enjoy your presence. I was so desperate to try to hold onto the peace I felt with you and capture it, instead of just witnessing it, that I pushed you away.

I also knew that to be with you would mean sacrificing parts of me that, it turns out, weren’t willing to be sacrificed. They roared to life and took me for a ride in your absence. I thought that for you I was willing to give up being a mom, but the universe had other plans. I have a beautiful little girl now and a partner who amazes me. He isn’t you, and that’s okay. There will never be another you. I’ve accepted that. We are all unique, and there are all types of love in this world, but never the same love story twice.

You taught me how to unconditionally love. A true unconditional love, not like the one I have for my daughter that’s there because I grew her inside of me. Not the kind of love present when you share blood with someone because that’s instinctual. I love you without conditions, for no reason.

I love you even though we do not speak, even though right now it appears on the surface like we have no connection. I love you even though you’re with someone new and may never speak to me again. I love you even though in all actuality we didn’t spend that much time together. I love you even though you “ghosted” me, multiple times throughout the dance of our relationship. I love you even though you broke my heart and expectations.

It was a pleasure to know you—to attempt to learn you. The time we did spend together and the words and energy we exchanged transformed my inner life. For that, I am forever grateful.

Thank you for breaking my heart wide open to the world.

Thank you for leaving me, for making me reach to the higher levels of my consciousness, beyond my body.

Thank you for finding happiness.

Thank you for showing me what following your heart really looks like.

Thank you for the learning opportunity to follow my own.

Thank you for breaking my expectations, so I could learn to show up for myself.

I will always love you.

And I hope you are happy wherever you are.

~