I love the moon. My favorite way to see the moon is when it’s big and seems like it’s following you. The light seems like it’s swallowing you and surrounding you in everything that’s love. Illuminating parts of places you’d never thought you’d see. Shining light on all the pieces of love hidden in places you wouldn’t find without it. The moon makes me think of love. It feels warm like being wrapped in a tight hug. So, subsequently, it makes me think of you. I hate that it reminds me of you but I’m starting to come to terms with it. It makes me think of the night I asked you to be my girlfriend. I still regret not asking you in person, but I had planned on asking you later than I did. The moon shined light on the parts of me that made me feel whole when you were around, and I just knew I had to ask you before the night was over. While I was walking home, still high from seeing you, I stood in the middle of the street looking up at the moon, seeing you in it, and letting both the moon and you swallow me whole. The moonlight grabbed me and hugged me. It wouldn’t let me go. The moon lit the pavement that was covered in the euphoria that spilled over and stained everything it touched. Although the moon wasn’t full, I was content. The moon followed me home that night. I watched it through my window, staring back at me, telling me everything I had already known: this is what love feels like. So, that was the night I had fully and intentionally decided on loving you unconditionally, and unconditionally I had loved. I was swelling with it and devoted to it. It seemed like destiny so I loved, and loved, and loved, and forgave, and loved, and gave, and loved, until it started to drown me. I was engulfed in it, more than ever at that point, which feels so differently than being swallowed by love because that feels like an embrace. It feels like the moon following you home, taking a peek in your window, and waving hello. Being engulfed felt like suffocating. I almost drowned in my love for you.
The Moon and Earth exert gravitational forces on each other. On Earth, the Moon’s gravity causes the oceans to form bulges on both the side facing the Moon and the side opposite to it. These bulges result in high tides, while the areas between them experience low tides. The moon has so much control over the way things are. It’s beautiful. Everything has its order and the moon seems to fall into place, finding the perfect spot to be. The gravitational pull between the moon and the Earth redistributes the water. It places the water where it needs to be because the moon was where it needed to be. Just the way it placed itself where it needed to be when it saw me and followed me home that night. It told me the actions I needed to take. Then touched my soul the same way you would go on to. Eventually, I would drown in its tides while it made waves crash into my body. However, it was all for good reason. The waves woke me up.
I’m starting to realize that you and the moon are very similar. The only difference is that I love the moon today and I’ll love the moon tomorrow. Nothing about my feelings for the moon are fleeting and no matter what the moon does, nothing will change that. I’ve loved the moon since I was a toddler. It’s followed me at every stage of life. Unfortunately, you won’t. I’ll have to let you wash away in the tides that the moon makes just as I let you grow in the light that the moon shed. This isn’t “goodbye”, though. It’s me disconnecting. They may sound like the same thing, but it isn’t. Instead, you’ll embody how I feel about the sun. It’s alright, but I can’t wait for the moon to come out. That isn’t a bad thing. It’s better for both of us that I stay neutral and wait for what I really love.
The love I have for everyone and everything is almost always unconditional. There will never be a point where it isn’t. Love is my moon and I am the tides. Love will always pull me where I need to be when I need to be there. I’ll always let it. My moon shoved me towards you, and now it’s pulling me away. I wouldn’t expect a love as constant as a gravitational pull to be fleeting, but it’s leaving. For my sake. You’ll always be a memory in the moon, though. When I look up I’ll remember the night I asked you to be my girlfriend. It’s a very pivotal moment in my life. I can still see the sparkly, purple, euphoric feelings that overflowed left in the street. The moon reveals itself every day I walk home. I don’t stand in the remnants anymore like I used to. I just look at it and remember it fondly. I trust that eventually, the same way the moon brought me to you, it will bring me to who I need.
I don’t only love the moon because I feel like it guides me. It reminds me of everything I aspire to be. It makes me dream. It makes me think of a life where I can have everything I could ever want. The moon looks promising. As did you. Paired with the moon I thought it was fate. I thought I was being guided into something as beautiful as my perception of the moon. Seeing every imperfection in every crater, even from far away, I was still fascinated. Enamored, even.
Like all good things, the moon must come to an end. It has to set and temporarily go away. You were my moon. There was a point in time where I couldn’t accept that my moon had to leave. Even periodically was too long because I spent the time you were gone romanticizing you for just being. Theoretically that’s amazing. Being loved for just existing. Being loved the same way I love the moon. However, it got to a point where I started to auction off pieces of me so that I could stare at the craters a while longer. Watch you shine. Remember what the warmth of the moon felt like. I completely neglected the fact that you had to set, no matter what I thought or gave away. This is me accepting that. I realize that I need to be my own moon. I need to provide my own warmth and comfort.
I’ve been influenced by friends to conceal my feelings, to get over them, but concealing only made it worse. Vulnerability brought me closer to the moon, as well as patience. The truth is that the way that I felt the night I walked home from seeing you is a moment that will never be replicated. It isn’t supposed to be, either. Everything about it is unique to you. I invited you to somewhere special to me, and you were the only girlfriend that came when I asked. You wouldn’t miss it. We spent the whole time together and I got the chance to feel embraced the same way the moon embraces me. I left the event and texted you the whole bus ride home. As I walked home, I stood in the street, letting your tides wash over me, and staring at the moon. The moon told me we were special. The moon held me the way you did. Even though I realize now more than ever that you had to leave, it will never take away from the moment. It was a lesson sent from you and the moon. It needed to happen. I think we both needed it to happen. It made us realize things about ourselves that we wouldn’t have found without the other.
I’ve been influenced by friends to conceal my feelings, to get over them, but concealing only made it worse. Vulnerability brought me closer to the moon, as well as patience. The truth is that the way that I felt the night I walked home from seeing you is a moment that will never be replicated. It isn’t supposed to be, either. Everything about it is unique to you. I invited you to somewhere special to me, and you were the only girlfriend that came when I asked. You wouldn’t miss it. We spent the whole time together and I got the chance to feel embraced the same way the moon embraces me. I left the event and texted you the whole bus ride home. As I walked home, I stood in the street, letting your tides wash over me, and staring at the moon. The moon told me we were special. The moon held me the way you did. Even though I realize now more than ever that you had to leave, it will never take away from the moment. It was a lesson sent from you and the moon. It needed to happen. I think we both needed it to happen. It made us realize things about ourselves that we wouldn’t have found without the other.
