Do you think she will meet him?

For once, it would have been nice to hold onto something, not to practice “The Art of Letting Go,” as they call it. I’m exhausted of hoping. It pains me that no matter what I do, how much time passes, I still see you and me in the backyard of our big white house, staying together under the round apple tree close to the small pond while I rest my head on your shoulder and hear our children call, “Mommy!” because they are fighting over something silly.

Five years ago, I had this dream, if I could call it that, and I still chase the ghost of it.

I miss you. I miss my family.

I wish that day I didn’t decide to rest for a bit on the black leather couch in my living room, but rather listen to my mother when she asked me to fold my clothes. “Later, ma,” I said. Indeed, I folded my clothes later on, but wondering what on earth was that. I wasn’t sleeping, but I can’t say it was a dream. So real, so warm, so nostalgic…

It took me 4 years going back and forth with “This is just in my head, no, no, I am simply bored,” to “But when has love ever felt normal?”

Intuition is an odd thing for someone who has been relying their entire life on rationality. Soulmates? Twin flames? It makes me feel insane that I even consider it a possibility, as if me being in love with a faceless man isn’t odd enough.

But I do know that every time I try to move on and meet someone new, it is pointless because they are not you. Who are you? A vision? A bundle of all unexplored love inside of me?

Thankfully, it is not always like this. As there are days I say, “See, I just needed to go out with my girls.” Then, in the midst of all the laughter and fun, suddenly I find myself wondering if you have eaten dinner—being pulled back to where I was before leaving the house. It is frustrating.

I’ve read this in books. It was romantic. It is not.

When it’s experienced firsthand, it’s rather closer to a horror story. Because besides all the love you feel, every time you want to move on, a wave of unspeakable guilt and shame washes over you, as if you are betraying something bigger than all of this.

People get hurt every time I try to let go of you. Stop haunting me, I beg you.

I beg you.

Let me move on if you won’t show up in my life because it apparently happens when you are ready. Clearly, after five years, you are still nowhere near to it. And clearly, I am not strong enough to forget you.

At the same time, I do fear you don’t know about my soul’s existence as I do for yours—that you are doing just fine, getting everything you have ever wanted and more, and that doesn’t include me.

I have a feeling you are doing better than ever, meeting new people, possibly currently thinking that you’ve found “the one,” but she is not me.

I resent the capacity of how deeply I love and care. I can love and be loyal to such an extent to an unknown man, and I still can’t let you go.

If I care for you this much now, maybe it is better that fate never brings us together. Terrifying how much I would love you after hugging you once, after you tell me how your day was, after seeing you do your job with such passion, after seeing you be kind to your parents and help your friends, after you tell me why you are the way you are.

Going on with my days as I wonder what could I possibly have sinned to long for an un-lived memory like this. If I had something of you to validate my feelings, something I can hold on to, something tangible—anything—it would make all of this much easier, much saner. I can’t even rant to my girlfriends about you because, well, what’s there to share here? Besides their possible and very normal concern that their friend may be schizophrenic. Heck, even I wonder that. So I keep my mouth shut, explore and read anything remotely similar to all of this, to get a little bit of closure.

I have come to terms with the possibility that we may never cross paths, which would be absolutely unnatural. Although, I wonder how it would be if it actually happens. I do not believe in past lives, but if such a thing is real, I know that in every universe, I choose you. If we were cats in the past, surely we had our daily adventures chasing mice and then some days just lying down on the porch, purring, while the sunlight kissed our faces. If we were rocks, we found a way to sit close to one another. If we were trees, our roots would have intertwined for centuries, and if you got cut, I found a way to go down with you too.

Funny thing that hope is, like an ocean wave that never disappears—it could become smaller, but it is still there, undying, still going. I still feel it deep down that we will meet again. And it won’t be the beginning of anything, but rather hitting the unpause button to continue our daily chronicles—being bored together, laughing together, crying together, gossiping together, fighting together, reconciling with love later.

After all of this—even if it turns out to be for nothing—I do not regret signing a soul contract with you when the skies and stars didn’t exist yet. I do not know how everything will unfold. I do know that we will figure it out.

I feel desperate to kiss you forever. But I feel more desperate for peace, to let go of you, and pretend this has never happened.