I really missed you today. Like really, really missed you.

I watched the kids taking prom pictures, while I sat at the park, as the sunset over the river. The same park where we went. The same park where that older woman told us that we looked beautiful together.

And I don’t know why I felt such an overwhelming need for you in that place.

I suppose it was the old memories.

It is so strange being in the same place but having such a profoundly different life. Having a new apartment, new clothes, new friends, but being in the same exact place. In the same exact skin that your hands once touched. With the same hair your fingers ran through. Yet, not at all the same person I once was with you.

I have never been a person who longs and yearns for love. Every year I got older and I watched as my friends began to ache for the romantic connection, and I felt none of that pain.

It was never important to me, I suppose.

It’s strange to think about. Because I am also a person who feels connected to everything. There is harmony in the trees, knowledge in the ocean, love in pets and friends, beauty in the flowers, peace in the mountains. Nothing in this world that I have encountered has lacked the ability to have some level of meaning for me.

So, I was always confounded by the idea that I did not feel unbearably lonely without a partner. Until I met you.

I was in college, still unaware of what it was to long for another.

I had tried and failed to love a boy in high school. He loved me very, very deeply. And I did love him, in a way. But not as he loved me. Not in a consuming, be together forever type of way.

When I left, I tried dating. I found that it didn’t quite suit me either. So, I just went on with life, and ignored the possibility of really, truly loving someone.

But, when I met you, I was intrigued. Someone had finally caught my attention for the first time in years. I did not pursue it. I figured it would just disappoint me, like it always did. To me, it seemed that romantic love was just simply not enough.

However, you pursued me, but did not push romance. You pushed a friendship. Finally, that turned my head. And my heart.

I loved you before I ever kissed you.

Then, once I kissed you and held you, I was hooked.

Just like that poor boy I had left behind. I was consumed. Enraptured. Ensnared. Enchanted.

I was yours, and you were mine. And I finally understood it all for the first time.

Loving someone that is out of reach feels like being bound to a tree and trying to run to the end of a race, but never being able to move any further.

You can see the finish line, your happiness. Yet, that rope won't let you move an inch, keeping you from reaching where you're meant to be.

People will tell you that it takes time for these things. Or the right person will come at exactly the right time. Or that you will find someone better, that it's complicated for a reason. Something is holding you back to protect you.

It's too exhausting to tell people, nothing has protected me. My heart is shattered, and I don't think it will ever be fully repaired after this. I am so broken that I don't know how to eat or sleep or breathe without them.

But, saying all that, it just makes people uncomfortable. And they're just trying to help, even if they have no idea what it's like to be in that situation.

To love somebody so incredibly much, only to watch them live without you. To have to live without them because you can't be together.

You feel like your lungs are collapsing in your chest, as you keep running that race, bound, and never moving forward. But, you never lose sight of the finish line.

I moved a lot. So, home was never really a place for me. It was people.

When I went to college, I left people behind. Slowly, they all moved away until no one was left in our little high school town.

Now, when I go back, and I walk along those little downtown streets, I feel like an outsider. I feel like that place never really belonged to me. Even though I spent four years there.

I see those friends, the people who feel like home, if I'm lucky, every three months. And I can't shake the feeling that I no longer have a home.

They kept living and so did I. We made new lives for ourselves. We found a new home in roommates and partners and friends.

But, no matter how much time passes, they always feel the most like home to me. Even if we don't spend every spare weekend together anymore.

They still remind me of ice cream and laughter and warmth. They still remain the people who loved me first. And I guess, that will always mean they are home to me.

Did we move on?

I ask myself that question all the time. Especially when I see your ex-wife at Target and wonder about the time we could've had.

My ex is off in Texas, married now, with an adorable little boy. I'm sorry I could never give her that. But, we both knew that, for me, my future was only ever with you.

You pop up in my dreams sometimes, and I wake up thinking you're beside me. It's devastating every time it happens. I don't know why I can't remember that we are no longer together when I'm asleep, because it's all I ever think about when I'm awake.

Carina, my love, it's been five years now. I can't believe it. How did I go this long without you? How have I survived it?

I think about you all the time. I wonder if you think of me too.

You must. There's no way that two people who cared for one another the way that we did, can just go on and never think of each other again. You cannot touch someone's soul and then forget them.

I have to cross your mind from time to time, if only in passing.

I never moved on. Not really. Did you?

One day, did you wake up, and no longer think of my face? Did you go all day without thinking about calling me?

That hasn't happened for me yet. My friends used to say, "Give it time." But now, they just scowl when I say your name. They miss what it was like before you, but I can't go back to who I was then. I can't go back to the time I lived without you. I don't know how.

Carina-

Did we move on?

I wonder if we did. It eats at me, thinking that you might have a new life without me in it.

My ex-wife says she sees you sometimes. We are still on good terms, she and I. You see, we split because I loved you and she wished I loved her. We chose to stay friends despite it. So, when she sees you, she tells me how you look.

She says that you have been sad. Marissa can tell by the look on your face.

Do you miss me?

I know that's wishful thinking. We were in-love once, that doesn't mean that every feeling you have is about me. But sometimes, I hope it is. Because I miss you.

I miss you so much it's hard to breathe. I feel the weight of your eyes suffocating me, without ever seeing your face.

For five years, I have yearned for you.

I know we had our problems, but I cannot let you go. I don't know why and I wish it would stop.

Because all I do is think of you.

How have I survived it?

How have you?

You must miss me too.

Two people cannot peer into one another's heart and turn away without looking back. You have to look back, sometime. And when you do, I'll be there.

Have you ever been loved by someone who doesn’t know how?

I’ll describe it to you, so you get a clearer picture.

Being loved by someone who doesn’t know how to love is like watching a drunk girl playing beer pong, trying to catch a ping pong ball.

They run after it, full of effort, but somewhere there’s a disconnect between their brain and their hand. No matter how hard they try, they just can’t seem to catch that little ball.

It’s the same when a broken person loves you. They try their best to love you. They yearn for it. But, it seems, that when they show their love, there is some disconnect from the way they feel and what they can say or do.

A broken person chases after that ping pong ball, giving all they’ve got, but every time they get close, the ball slips out of their grasp yet again.

I am not good at things like this. Expressing myself, letting people in, talking about my feelings... It's hard for me.

But, I know how much it would mean to know that I did it for you.

So, I want you to know that I am incredibly sad. I am heartbroken. I want you to know that I miss you every single day, and I wish I could have told you more clearly in life how much you meant to me.

I failed you.

You needed someone and I wasn't there. I didn't let you know that you were cherished, and now it is too late.

Even though you're gone and you cannot hear me anymore, I will say it now.

You are an amazing human. You make me laugh until my sides are sore. You make my life just a little lighter, just by being in it. You are loved and missed and adored. You are precious to me.

I hope you can see that now, wherever you are. Because you left us too soon. You left before we had the chance to tell you. But, it's true.

I'm sorry we failed you. I'm sorry that the world was cruel. I'm just sorry.

There will never be enough words to express how wonderful you were, and I'm sorry for how tragically I am failing to capture it, but you were wonderful.

You were one of the good ones.

Goodbye, my love. I hope whatever world you're in now is a kinder one than the one you left behind.

This one comes with a bit of anxiety. I know you want to help, but you can't. When she gets overwhelmed by it, give her space and she'll calm down, eventually.

She is an unpredictable being. I know this can be upsetting sometimes. Love her anyways. When she is a screaming banshee and when she is a calm ocean tide, love her.

She is too much for some people. I know this is not easy to understand, when you so easily fit wherever you are. But, sometimes she doesn't know how to fit into spaces because her opinions are too big, and sometimes she cannot, for the life of her, figure out how to take up enough space to be noticed. Let her know that, either way, she belongs with you.

This one can get angry. This may frighten you or make you angry too. Just know, the reason she gets angry, it is because she is passionate. She loves deeply, she feels richly. When she gets angry, try your best to let her. I know that it's hard, but do it anyways. No one else gives her space to feel that burning rage and she will thank you for it.

She is a loving soul, and becomes encompassed by the love she feels for others. Her love is calm and kind and thoughtful. She loves others easily, but does not accept love with ease. Do not see this as a sign to stop. Keep loving her, keep trying. One day, she'll learn to accept that love.

She is a loyal creature, and a fearsome protector of the people she loves. Follow these instructions, and this one will stay by your side forever.

I have never been lucky in love.

Blame it on my chaotic family or my trust issues or my choice in partners, but I have almost had it several times. I have been so close to love so many times, I'm beginning to wonder if it just isn't in the cards for me.

To be fair, I have loved someone before. Deeply. Twice, actually.

But, for whatever reason, either time, we couldn't make it work. Whether it was just bad timing or something different, it never happened.

So, I've felt heartbreak and love and hurt and everything in between, but I still haven't known what it is to belong to another person.

I've been so close that I could taste it, but it turned out to be an almost. And almost is never enough.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved another girl. They lived in a cruel world where people said God would never love a girl who loves girls.

They loved each other in spite of it. But, because of other people's hatred, neither would say how they felt. So, they spent time together and danced around how they really felt.

As time went on, it became increasingly complicated for them, without knowing how the other felt. So, they finally talked about it.

One left crying. The other stayed behind, in pieces after hurting her lover.

Two weeks passed and they hadn't spoken a word to each other. Their friends kept asking what was going on. Neither of them wanted to talk about it.

One was angry. The other was sad. Both of them were stubborn.

The angry one refused to reach out because she wanted an apology. The sad one wouldn't reach out because she was afraid of what the angry one would say.

Finally, the sad girl broke down and said, "Hey, I miss you. Okay. Bye."

It drowned the angry girl's rage. All she knew was that she missed her lover and her friend.

When the sad girl asked to talk, the angry girl agreed.

They talked. They kissed. They spent every day and every night together, wrapped up in that love. They fell deeper and deeper into each other until it was almost too much. Then, they fell apart just as fast. The world and other people's opinions were too heavy. And the angry one became the sad one. She yearned for the other girl.

But, this time, neither of them reached out.

They knew loving each other from a distance was kinder than fighting every day trying to be together in an unkind world.