Years later, you drove hours to whisk me to West Virginia University on days when my college-induced-depression spiked, and held my hand as my body adapted to antidepressants. Our bond was so strong, “I love you” didn’t quite encapsulate it, so we made up a word, just for us, to express our feelings for each other.
Thank you for introducing me to the best feeling in the world: worshiping someone so much that you didn’t need anyone else, or the sun (we would spend days in that basement bedroom).
Eventually, I had to crawl out of that warm and cozy hole. Thank you for letting me go.
It was time to be a single adult in NYC. There were a few flings, but my long-term hookup buddy is the only one worth mentioning. S, you didn’t buy me gifts, or drinks, even, but you gave me confidence. And you know what they say about finding love; you won’t find it until you love yourself. With you, I was “the best kisser,” sexually adventurous and interesting. You taught me how to enjoy sex and how to be in a mature relationship, even though we weren’t in one. After I finally gave up on turning you into boyfriend material and settled for sex, I felt like such an adult. It was healthy; there were no expectations or letdowns. It might not have been love, but it was just as life-changing.
Around that time, with no boyfriend or career holding me back, I fell in love with traveling. And with an Israeli soldier. B, you gave me the heart-wrenching love everyone deserves to feel at some point in their lives. It was the kind of passion that inspired that corny quote, “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
We spent 10 crazy days entwined, then two years trying to figure out a way back to each other when neither of us had the means to make such a big move. It was painful yet fulfilling in a self-destructive way. After two years of Skype calls and visa rejections, we finally reconnected in Delaware for six hours. We rolled round in my hotel bed and talked as if you weren’t about to get on a plane shortly. When you did, it felt like you were being ripped away from me, and I never wanted to feel that again. I was ready to close this chapter.
Whenever you pop into my head, my heart breaks all over again (on a more bearable scale), and I kind of don’t mind. I feel lucky to have felt so strongly about someone that I almost moved across the world for them, and that I was scarred when it fell apart. After that roller coaster of a relationship, I was ready for a real one.
