A Better Man

 
Clint Black's 1989 debut album featured the debut single — A Better Man (for which I found perhaps the original video!). I've heard this song countless times. It's safe to say it's a classic, especially because it continues to get airplay 30 years after its release. And it echoes the sentiment I carry in my heart for Cindy, the girl who gave me the greatest love story of my life.  

What do I like about this song? It's simple and accessible. It's not overwrought. And it's an honest assessment of a relationship that is no more. It's an all-around good song, and it clearly defines how I feel about the woman I continue to love. 

I could not have found a purer soul to fall in love with. I could not have found a woman more perfect for me. Though I'm no longer upset and distressed because our relationship ended, it goes without saying I wish it hadn't. I miss her. I always have. And always will. She felt like the missing piece. Without her, I will always feel incomplete.

She taught me things I can't even explain. She showed me what love looks like. She revealed her heart to me and left me awestruck. What she fought through all those years was incomprehensible. Though it devastated me with its end, I can safely say the relationship I had with her was one of the highlights of my life and it certainly outshines all other relationships I've had. All in all, it lasted only a few short months. Though I was consumed by it and its ending, I've emerged on the other side a much better man. 

I've learned what it's like to love a woman, I mean a real woman, and with real, heart-pounding love. Everyone says they love someone, but now I understand the cost of love. And I decided to love her in spite of losing her, which some may say is tragic or pathetic or dangerous, and I can assure you it is none of those things. It's beautiful and respectful and timeless. 

The lessons I learned from Cindy will carry me through the rest of my days. Sure, there is irony in finding the one you love late in life, and an even greater irony in losing her. But I won't apologize for things I can't control. The ending wasn't how I would have written it, but life doesn't always allow us to edit the biggest events of our lives. 

Though the red hot flames of our love have died down and turned to embers (a la Taylor Swift's Red), and perhaps have gone out entirely, I will always memorialize what she meant to me and what she will always mean to me because one gets only a single love like that. I think my body and soul couldn't contain more than one love like I had with her. 

I don't mean to beleaguer the point, but some people haunt us. They linger long after they are gone in a way that's as indescribable as much as it is inescapable. She captured me. I will always belong to her, though she may never belong to me. Thank you, sweet girl, for teaching me what love looks like. And for teaching me what I've always longed to see in a woman — a curious mind and a beautiful soul — actually look like. My life is much poorer in your absence, yet I truly leave here a better man. 

And thank you all for reading. It's my hope these love letters (and perhaps by extension, the memory of her) will never die.