It is in the dark hours of the morning that you turn up in my dreams. I pant myself awake, knowing I will never see you again.

This agonizing reality startles my spirit, steals my breath. I calm myself by reliving in my mind our last evening together … again … and again as I search to find what I did wrong in the months leading up to our last night together.

What could I, should I, have done differently — to keep you from letting me go?

A hit of caffeine at dawns shakes me aware. If I had just done something, everything, differently I wouldn’t have been … me and that would have been a disaster more devastating than our breakup.

Perhaps the quest to find your soul mate is to discover the one person who embraces all that you are — the worries, the wine, the wild sex, wacky ideas, and the wonderfulness that all that is. I seek the find the one who will love me, without hesitation.

The facts are clear as the diamond that we will never share. This complexly complicated person who loved you so deeply is not the person that you wanted to be your “forever.”

Who you truly are remains a mystery to me, which feels empty and reminds me that I am alone. So I attempt to piece together my memories of us … and attempt to find peace.

I do know we took a chance, learned much, and gave up on something precious. These are the results of our experiment.

And while this optimist knows our love was deeper than the data, the logician that is you knows this is how his love sometimes spends itself. I have no choice but to accept the finality of our goodbye.

Letting go of me is what you wanted, needed, demanded. Cold turkey. No tears. No regrets. Yours again is the freedom to define your time, design your life, sleep alone in your bed, but most likely not.

What remains for me is the memory of your gentle touch, the velvety feel of your skin beneath my fingertips, and the taste of a remarkable affair that I’ve tucked into a corner of my heart.

This is how I will love you now.