Dear... Secret Soulmate
It's been 40 years since we first met through my brother, your best friend. We were just children. I never thought that you would impact my life like you have. I have longed to tell you just how I feel, but circumstances will never allow for that. For as long as my memory serves me, I cannot remember a moment that I have not been in love with you. You have been a part of my life since I was just 6 years old.
I will always remember the nights that we would lay on your sister's bedroom floor, each sleeping on one side of her bed, just our heads poking out from the foot of the bed. We would talk, giggle and just fall asleep. Your sister, my best friend, always knew. In fact, that is what ended our friendship many years later. You never knew the reason. She had become jealous, stating that you always treated me better than your own sister. I tried to explain that it's not better, just different.
Every monumental moment you were there with me. You gave me the confidence to get my driver’s license, when I failed every other time someone else had taken me. You were there to cheer me on at graduation. That night we sat up all night talking while my friends went out to celebrate. You thought I'd rather be with them, I was right where I wanted to be. We had so many good times and memories that just stick with a person's soul. My soul.
When I walked down the aisle you were the first person I saw. I grabbed dad's hand so tight, worrying if he would ask if I was okay. I just so badly wanted you to stand up and tell me not to do it! As if it were just yesterday, I remember you standing there, arms crossed at your wrists, with that smile. What I saw behind the smile told me something else, I wondered if anyone else had seen it too. After the ceremony you held me in your arms while I cried. I cried because I knew who I had truly wanted to be standing next to me. Two years later, I cried again, as you held my newborn daughter in your arms. You looked at her with such affection that you would have thought she was your own. Again, I wondered if anyone in the hospital had noticed. You've held me tight while we both shed tears at funerals, all the while wondering what our spouses thought as they watched.
Here we are, 23 years later, both married, both have divorced, married again, and divorced again. Could we be each other's underlying reason for our unsuccessful marriages. I always figured it was for my own. But yours too?
Over the years I have tried to avoid you at gatherings but you make it a point to be noticed. I catch myself staring in your direction, just watching you smile and laugh. You look my way and I turn away. I have caught you doing the same, only when I make eye contact, you don't turn away. I can always feel it in my soul when you are looking at me, it's like I have this instinct to turn around and find you.
After 40 years of feeling this way I don't forsee it ever changing. You will always have my heart. My soul. My biggest fear is that something will happen to one of us and you will never hear me say the words, I love you.
I wonder if you already know.