but the first time you fall in love it hits you like a train and you see it coming and you can't even move.
love is never wrong and so it never dies.
when i first fell head over heels, over the moon, can't eat, can't sleep, can't wait to wake up, in love, i was 18 years old. D was a year younger than me.
he cannot be explained.
he was everything i ever wanted. he was my best friend. we were so similar. it was almost unbelievable.
we were both quaker, had sisters the same age, played lacrosse.
our parents got along, our sisters loved each other.
loving him was the first time i ever thought about someone before myself.
loving him was paradise.
we would kiss everywhere.
we would hate leaving each other.
we would sneak out of class for two seconds of seduction in the hallway.
we would break all rules and than we would laugh about it.
we would smoke cigarettes in my room.
we took pictures together, took our clothes off.
we went to maine and kayaked and made love.
we climbed mountains.
loving someone with everything you have is the most powerful, emotional, intense, and terrifying thing you can do. because they can hurt you the most.
i remember thinking he could never hurt me. we were so happy.
we were so perfect for each other.
he was my soul mate.
i remember people asking me what i saw in D, laughing at us because of how ridiculously happy we were.
i remember sticking up for him and for us and for our once in a lifetime love.
when i graduated my boarding school in 2008, i gave D my yearbook to sign first, because i wanted him to have enough space to write whatever he wanted. and he did. he filled up every single available space in the yearbook. no one else could write in it if they tried. and that is just how he was.
i remember once the school was holding a s'mores event for all the students one weekend - just to do something nice, as like a little treat. and D, knowing my life and obsession for chocolate, stole all the hersheys bars for me. he hid them in his sweatshirt.
for senior prom he kept begging me to go - to get tickets, and i kept saying no, telling him i had no desire to go, but i got them secretly and surprised him and asked him over dinner one night. he was the best dancer.
at my graduation meeting for worship i remember he stood up, talking about the class of 2008 and how he will miss his friends, etc, and finally saying how he met a wonderful girl, who changed his life. my mom and aunt cried.
the summer after i graduated when we vacationed in maine - it was foggy and rainy and yet it was the most perfect place i can ever remember being because i was with him. i remember getting off the train and seeing him and him hugging me and kissing me and telling me how tan i looked. i remember D teaching me how to eat lobster and how to canoe. i remember falling asleep in this little room with a fly net over the bed - every night it would take him hours to tell him goodnight.
a few days before i left for college in baltimore, D called me and ended things - saying he needed to focus on his senior year of school, and i should embrace college life. i was broken. i couldn't leave my bed. just thinking about his smile would make me cry.
in november i visited my boarding school for the first time since graduation.
the first person i saw was D.
he ran out of his house, wrapped his arms around me, told me i looked skinnier and helped me carry my bags up to the dorms. we kissed and it was still the most amazing feeling in the world.
i was lost without him and yet whenever we were together i lost myself in him, in his kisses, in his touch, in his laugh.
we tried to be together again, only to end once more on christmas.
i didn't speak to him for months until he called me one night in early march - saying he saw a picture of me, was thinking of me, told me about how he got into college, again professing his love.
after that he came to baltimore to visit me, met all my college friends. it was the best three days i had had since maine that summer. i didn't go to class at all. we just stayed in the room, talking, laughing, kissing, crying, making love. we left the room to eat occasionally. when he left baltimore, i remember dropping him off at the train station, trying to avoid our eventual goodbye. when he finally walked onto his train and i got into my cab, the cab driver looked at me, all teary eyed and heartbroken, and he asked "are you going to marry him?" i laughed and said, "god i hope so."
we eventually broke up in late april. we just couldn't figure out how to make it work.
and yet i saw him that august, the morning he left for college, he made love in the woods at our boarding school. he was leaving me, leaving the chapter of our life that we had created so sacredly and that i had tried so desperately to conserve.
i visited his college in november but things were not the same. although we still kissed and talked and laughed and cried and knew we loved each other, things had changed. we had both changed.
and we were both finally happy without one another.
although D and i didn't work out, he taught me how to give, how to love, and how i should feel when i'm with someone. he taught me that love and passion coexist and that happiness is heaven. even in the absolute worst situations i was so happy because i was with him.
i know he was my soul mate. and because of that i believe that there are multiple soulmates for everyone. some for a moment, some for a year, some for a lifetime.
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