I remember the depth of your gaze as you lay looking at me. It was an unspoken understanding between our two souls that finally met. In that moment, I knew that you felt seen and safe. You had finally experienced true belonging, as if you would never need to pretend to be somebody else, with every parts of you welcomed.

Now, I feel an emptiness in my chest, a familiar sensation that I recognize as grief. I have learned to simply acknowledge it, allow myself to feel it, and send love toward it.

I am grieving a stranger. I am used to grieving strangers – the ones that are still alive. The strangers I encounter feel so familiar, so much like a profound connection from another time, another world. But this grief feels different. It feels… lonely.

There is something about grieving together that reminds us that we are not alone in our sorrow and transforms our pain into sacred bond. In this grief, however, I am alone.  I am grieving an unspoken bond… an unacknowledge one.

I still think about that man, you know? I think of him almost all the time, actually. Not you, another man. We were young, he was an old soul. He saw so clearly in me, connected to my essence, and fell in love with that, only with that. He cared deeply in a way that said, « I want what is best for you. I hope you never abandon yourself. I hope you could see yourself, all that you are, all that you exude, your power, your brilliance, and embody it. » It pained him to see how much I was living in misalignment, how much my conditioning was more powerful than the light he knew I had within me. It broke his heart, and he stopped gravitating around me. It was too painful for him to watch me be of disservice to myself, to fall into all the scripts that were expected of me. What could he have done? I needed to follow my own journey. It took me almost 20 years to start realizing what he already knew then.

There is something beautiful about pure love, the kind that exists between true belonging and freedom, the kind that doesn’t need to possess you, A love that is rooted in care and the desire for the other’s well-being.

In my mind, you took the place of that little girl and I see you with that man’s eyes. If only you were aware of the depth of that moment, it could save you many years of soul-searching. However, I understand that this wisdom may not yet be accessible to you. You may not be able to consciously acknowledge it due to the barriers and filters of your conditioning.

I have fallen in love with you, but not in the way you might think. I have fallen in care for you. I see you so clearly, more than you are able to see yourself right now. Just like this man, I know that I have to honor the space in which you currently exist. You have to face yourself, follow your own journey, your own path. Sometimes, certain encounters can have a lasting impact, even if their full significance is only understood much later. Life will make you meet people who will deeply influence you, but you will only realize it when you can zoom out and see how this moment is connected to the rest. One day, you will come to understand the significance of our connection and grieve in your own time .I won’t be there when it happens. You will grieve me then. I grieve you now.

“Be you, the world will adjust”

R-D