Holding Cynthia

 
Chasing Amy. Looking for Alaska. 500 Days of Summer. The Great Gatsby. 

I have my own lost love story. It's compelling. It's beautiful. It's haunting. 

I still chase her with my mind. I still feel her with my heart. She was the most beautiful thing I ever held in my hands. She was always there. Until she wasn't. I've searched for her ever since.

I never knew a woman could make me feel the things she did. I never knew I'd be so impossibly ruined by her — ruined for anything else. I knew she was never truly mine, but just the thought of having her made me impossibly happy. A love like that is a gift. A woman like her is a jewel. The time we had together was a dream. And the memories of her sustain me. 

There is no perfect human being, but she was perfect to me. She made me see the world differently. She let me believe something as precious as her could be had by a man like me. Oh, what I would give for just one more day with her. Just to hear her voice on the other end of the line. Just to hold her hand or watch her brush her hair from her eyes. Or hear her breathing next to me in the darkness. 

There are no words for losing something like that. I've tried to explain it to the world. I've tried to explain it to myself. I think she left a part of herself in me, and it's bored into me with a burning I cannot understand. It tells me our story isn't over. It tells me our someday is still out there. It tells me so many things without ever saying a word. 

How many times have I angrily turned on myself, saying this is what you get for loving a woman? Too many. But love is not to blame. Love is wonderful. It's losing love that hurts. And the love I had for her was so precious, so innocent, so naive. It hoped and believed and waited and waits still. 

I know I'll be okay someday. But that day is not today. You don't get over a loss like this in a day or a year or even a lifetime. My heart holds her still and quiet in my chest. That little piece of her is all I have, and here it will stay.