This Is When I Finally Knew I Loved You

By

I think at that moment I fell in love with you.

We were standing on the subway platform; it was raining out so the floor was a little slippery. I was waiting for the F train to come and take me home; I was leaving the next day for Christmas break, so you had walked me there to say goodbye. I realized I would not see your face or feel your touch for a week, and the panic ensued. Of course I realized a week wasn’t a long time at all—people had been separated from their lovers for months, years, and still made it out alive. But in the moment, it seemed like an eternity to be without you.

I think at that moment I was scared of loving you.

I know that it’s a great and unearthing emotion, one that makes the sky look bluer, the air feel crisper, and birds chirp louder, I’m well aware. But in my past all it signified was the downpour of rain and thunder with high winds, and people running to seek shelter. I hoped this time would be different, and I think it will be.

I think at that moment I realized that loving you was going to hurt me.

You are starting Law School in September, it could be the school 10 minutes from my apartment, or halfway across the country. I just started loving you, and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to last long distance. Are people supposed to know these things? Should I have decided this before falling in love with you? Did I have that option? Should I have decided this before falling in love with you? Did I have that option?

I think it just kind of happened, and I don’t really want to think too much into a future without seeing you everyday.

Ever since I started loving you, I have nightmares that you’ll leave.

And I don’t know if my subconscious is trying to warn me or simply playing a trick on me, and I don’t know which option I feel better with. I’m scared now. This little word I feel now has changed everything. It’s not butterflies and sunshine that come along with it. Sure, sometimes it is. There are butterflies every time I kiss you, still. And there is sunshine when we are both drinking coffee Sunday mornings, laughing at recollections from our night out before.

But there is also darkness, that makes me feel the pouring rain again, like trying to plan the future, when you are perpetually stuck in today and can’t seem to think past tomorrow. I can’t plan our future together when I’m the only one willing to drive more than a mile out from our current location, and you like to keep the car in idle, because it makes you feel safer.

Maybe you’ll break me, but maybe you’ll finally make me whole.