I'll always have myself

What is it that draws the breath out of my lungs so violently when I think about you? As if I stepped out into a freezing wind naked and wet. The sharp initial inhale of breath catching in my throat and the sting of cold piercing through my skin like knives is the only sensation I can compare to how I felt when you walked in unexpectedly.

A marvelous tragic love story did happen between you and me, but I knew it was over when I started to day dream about the memories we had created instead of the future we should have shared.

How sad.

I instead day dreamt about being alone and at peace, and here I am. I sometimes ask myself if it's everything I could have ever imagined. The feeling of loneliness still overwhelms me at times, but I can't help but notice the sparkle that has crept back into my green eyes.

Romantic loneliness is what I like to call it.

In love with myself is what I like to say.

There's been something absolutely magical about finding myself again. I thought at first I needed to find out who I was, but this part of me was always here. It was just stifled and smothered beneath all of the thoughts you put into my brain. Buried so deep, I almost forgot she was there. That I am here. Almost forgot who I was, and that can never happen again.

So as much as my heart still screams when you call me and cry and ask me how things could be so different now, my mind is made up. My breath will always catch at the sight of you because I've loved you since the moment we met, but I will never lose myself for someone else again.

Call it selfish or not, I don't really care. I'd rather be alone forever than to not feel like myself at the expense of another's company.

After all this, I still believe in love. I know it's out there waiting for me in the same space I hold myself in, and with the same joy I'll have in finding it. It will feel wholesome and safe. It will not tear me down because if it's own insecurities. It is real and it may take a long time to find it, or it may be right in front of me...waiting.

Either way, I've put my hands up in surrender in looking for it. I'll continue to cherish the parts of me that had been neglected for years until I'm positively radiant.

The sun shines on me, and today is a new day. I am alone, but I couldn't have asked for anything more.

Goodbye to you and the feelings that linger within me because I've since felt the small joys of hope within myself and those around me that something better than what you gave me exists and is waiting for me to find it. The hope of that thought alone sends my heart pounding with possibilities.

Maybe I shouldn't be thinking about love so soon after, but I am hopelessly romantic and deliriously optimistic about it. I may be crazy, but you are only considered crazy until you are right. And I'll have to admit, I am not usually wrong.

I'll refuse to let a heart break define what I want to consider to be love, and I may get my heart broken a hundred more times too. It may be worth it, or it may be futile.

But I'll always have myself.

And instead of a sharp inhale of pain, when it's right, it will be a long sigh of relief.