Love, and the people who never knew

I loved a man who loved someone else openly and I stayed convinced I could win, and I never did, and you cannot love a person into loving you back, devotion is not currency, it buys nothing, and I've let him go and myself with him, and it's the first free breath I've taken in years.

I loved her before she got sick and I love her more now that she's fading, losing a little of the woman I married each day and loving whatever's left, and it's the purest thing I've done, loving past the point where she can love me back, because I said I would, once, meaning it less than I mean it now.

I loved a woman for a decade who loved a man who didn't love her back, and I waited, patient and pathetic, to be noticed, and I let her cry on my shoulder about him for years, and I've finally understood I wasn't waiting for love, I was addicted to the nearness of it, to being the shoulder, and I've let her go, and myself with her, and it's the first honest thing I've done in ten years.

I loved a woman for a decade who loved a man who didn't love her, and I let her cry on my shoulder about him for years, and I've finally understood I was never waiting for love, I was addicted to the nearness of it, and I've let her go, and myself with her.

I loved a man who loved someone else openly and told me so and I stayed convinced I could win, and I never did, and you cannot love someone into loving you back, devotion is not a currency that buys anything, and I've let him go and myself with him and it's the first free breath in years.

I loved a woman who loved someone who didn't love her, and I waited, patient and pathetic, for the day she'd notice the one who actually would, and that day never came, and she cried on my shoulder about him for years, and I let her, and I've finally understood that I wasn't waiting for love, I was addicted to the nearness of it, to being the shoulder, to a devotion that flattered me more than it ever served her, and I've let her go, and myself with her, and it's the first honest thing I've done in a decade.

I loved her before she got sick and I love her more now that she's fading, and every day I lose a little more of the woman I married and I keep loving whatever's left, and people say it must be so hard and it is, and it's also the purest thing I've ever done, loving someone past the point where they can love me back, just because I said I would, once, in a church, meaning it less than I mean it now.

I loved a woman for a decade who loved a man who didn't love her, and I let her cry on my shoulder about him for years, and I've finally understood I was never waiting for love, I was addicted to the nearness of it, to being the shoulder, and I've let her go and myself with her, and it's the first honest thing I've done in ten years.

I love her more now that she's fading, losing a little of the woman I married each day and loving whatever's left, and it's the purest thing I've done, loving past the point where she can love me back, just because I said I would once, in a church, meaning it far less than I mean it now.

We kissed once on a rooftop at nineteen and I've compared every kiss since to a boy whose last name I never learned, and I've kissed good and kind people and thought, close, but not the rooftop, never the rooftop.

I loved a man who loved someone else openly and told me so and I stayed anyway, convinced I could win, and I never did, and I've finally understood that you cannot love someone into loving you back, that devotion is not a currency that buys anything, and I've let him go, and myself with him, and it's the first free breath I've taken in years.

We've never kissed and I've kissed him a thousand times in my head and each imaginary kiss is more detailed than any real one I've ever had, and I'm starting to worry the real thing couldn't survive the competition.

I loved my late husband and I love my new one and I've decided the guilt of the second love is a thing nobody warns you about, that being happy again feels like an infidelity to a man who can't release me from it.

I loved someone who could not love me back, whose whole architecture was retreat, and I spent years memorizing the exact temperature of his leaving, and I finally understood you cannot love a person into loving you, that devotion buys nothing, and I let him go and myself with him and took the first free breath in years.

I loved a woman who told me she'd never be able to love anyone the way she loved her first, and I said I didn't need that, and I've decided I lied, and that I needed it desperately, and that I got what I agreed to.

Late love is greedy love, because you can count the seasons left, and so I kiss him like there's a deadline, because there is, and it makes every ordinary Tuesday feel like the last good day of summer.

I love her more now that she's fading, losing a little of the woman I married each day and loving whatever's left, and it's the purest thing I've done, loving past the point she can love me back, because I promised, once, meaning it less than now.

I loved someone who was in love with someone who was in love with someone else, a whole chain of us, and none of it ever resolved, and I've decided the world is full of people facing the wrong direction.

I have loved two people at once, fully, for real, for years, and everyone says that's impossible, that it must have been infatuation with one and love with the other, and they're wrong, it was love with both, a whole heart given twice without dividing, and I chose one and stayed and have been a good and faithful partner ever since, and the other married and moved away, and the thing no one understands is that choosing didn't stop the loving, it just gave it nowhere to live, and so it lives here, quietly, in me, taking nothing from the life I built, asking nothing, refusing to die, a love with no future and no regret and no name I can say to a living soul.

We loved each other for a decade as friends, everyone assumed, we assumed, and then one night the wine and the truth came out at once and we kissed and it was terrible, no spark at all, and we pulled back laughing and horrified and grateful, and we've never tried again, and I've decided the greatest love of my life is the man I finally kissed just to prove we were only ever meant to be exactly what we were, which is everything, which is enough, which is more than most people ever get.

I loved my sister's boyfriend and said nothing for a decade and now they're married and I'm the godmother to their children and I love those kids with a fierceness that's partly love and partly the closest I'll ever get to the life next door.

I loved a man who was in love with the idea of me, the writer version, the interesting one, and when I got tired and ordinary he left, and I've decided being loved for your best self is the most exhausting kind of conditional there is.

I loved him and he loved someone else and I stayed friends to stay near, the oldest saddest trick, and I watched him propose to her at a party I helped plan, and I clapped, and I've spent years being the reliable friend hoping proximity would turn to love, and it never did, it just turned me into furniture in someone else's happiness, and I'm finally, at thirty-nine, learning to leave the room.

I loved my best friend's husband before he was anyone, met him first, said nothing, and now I hold their newborn and love that baby like proof of a life I could have had, and some love just quietly redirects into whoever will let you pour it.

I loved him in the years he was too broken to love back, and I left, and he got well for the woman who came after, and I'm happy for her and I want to scream, because I watered the ground and she picked the flower, and that's not how I thought love was supposed to be fair.

I loved my best friend's husband before he was anything to anyone, met him first, said nothing, and now I hold their newborn and love that baby like proof of a life I could have had, and I've decided some love just quietly redirects itself into whoever will let you pour it.

I loved someone who loved the idea of leaving more than any place or person, and I spent years being a harbor for a boat that only ever wanted the open sea, and I finally let the rope go, and he sailed, and I've decided you can't dock a person who's in love with the horizon.

I kissed my brother's girlfriend in 1996, or she kissed me, and we agreed it never happened. They've been married twenty-two years. At every anniversary party she and I toast across the room like two spies who retired from the same war.

Did you ever really love him, or just settle, my father asked me near the end. I said loved. He gave me a look that said he knew better. He died knowing the truth I've never admitted to my own reflection — that I chose comfort over the man who made my hands shake. My dad took my one real secret to the grave, and some nights I'm grateful he's the only one who ever guessed.

My husband and I have not been in love, exactly, for a long time — we've been something quieter and, I've come to think, larger. We're each other's home country. You don't fall in love with your country; you just can't imagine being from anywhere else. Last week a widow at church asked if I still loved him, expecting a sweet yes, and I said 'he's where I'm from,' and she looked confused, and I didn't explain, because there's no explaining a border you've lived inside for forty years.

I would have been good for her. That's the thought I can't put down. Not that I loved her — lots of people are loved — but that I would have been good for her, specifically, in the ways she needed, and she chose someone who isn't, and I have to watch, and I have to be happy for her, and I am, and I would have been good for her.