To The Man Who Doesn’t Know I’m In Love With Him

You don’t know it yet, but I’m falling in love with you.  We grew up together and lost touch for a long time.  My heart always wondered where you were and what you were doing.  I’d check up on you through family and friends and make sure that life was treating you well.

And life was treating you well.  You got married to a beautiful woman.  She posted videos and pictures of you guys on Facebook and you seemed happy.  You always took her out for romantic dinners, ran her baths and treated her like any woman deserved to be treated.  From the surface your life was beautiful and perfect.  And I was so happy for you.

My life went on too, you know.  I got married and had children.  I was happy.  My life felt fulfilled and was what I had always wanted it to be.  I never would have expected our lives to cross paths again, and under the circumstances they have?  I would have bet against it.

See, we are both getting divorced now.  Your wife cheated on you and then kicked you out.  She said you spent too much time at work and trying to fix up the house and not enough time loving her the right way.  My husband gave up on being an important part of the lives of me and my children.  He threw his hands up when my youngest daughter got sick and decided that checking out emotionally was the only way he could cope.

Life twisted our paths back together.  Our childhood friendship was rekindled over long nights of talking about our failures in marriage and in life.  Our friendship blossomed into reminiscing about how we grew up, our parents crazy ideas about how we should shape our future and how we use to dance to N*Sync.  As we slowly became each other’s support and confidant we found ourselves talking more deeply about what we hoped and dreamed for the future.

You reached out to me.  You said that you wanted to be supportive and wanted to be a part of my life.  You wanted to be a part of my kid’s lives and you wanted to be there no matter what that form took (friendship or more).  You made me smile and laugh more than I have in five years in a matter of a few months.  I felt free to be myself again.  I felt free to be a kid.

And now, as time is going on, I find myself facing a familiar feeling of gratification and happiness just being a part of your daily life.  I feel myself falling in love.

I’m not going to say that I’m not terrified, because I am absolutely horrified at the idea of falling in love.  I am insecure and worried about what it is suppose to be like.  I’m afraid that I will somehow fail you as a person.  I won’t be able to open myself in the right way.  I won’t be as supportive as I should.  I won’t be this or I won’t be that.  But you are constantly there saying that you don’t need me to be anything more than I am.  And I love that.

I just want you to know how much I appreciate you.  I adore you.  I am falling in love with you.  Thank you for letting me experience that encompassing feeling.  I’m sure that we will have some deeply emotional moment where you will tell me that you are in love with me – because you are already telling me in the small ways that you treat me every day, and I cannot wait to look you in the eyes and know that when we say those words it will mean something to each of us, even if it isn’t forever.