Many yearn for the type of love that he gave me: Every gesture was rich in sentiment and each utterance was dense with adoration.
He always spoke of future plans to see the world with me. But he didn’t just want to see the world with me—he wanted to give it to me.
So what was wrong with this seemingly perfect scenario?
I knew what I wanted, but I also knew that our futures were far from parallel.
I came to find over the course of two years that he was no more than a dreamer. He would voice his desires to travel with me and move from our stagnant hometown, but he never tried to act on said wishes.
It was easy to see that he wanted me, but he didn’t want the same things I did. He told me he would go wherever I went, but I didn’t want someone who would passively follow close behind; I wanted someone who would walk beside me, equally.
I had waited long enough for him to fulfill his declarations, as I had every intention of going forth with my own visions. We both knew that he would continue to reside in his comfort zone—the only world he could really seem to offer me.
I never scrutinized his decision to remain, but I knew that I was destined to chase a dream that lay outside of the reality I had settled for.
When I chose to depart from the stillness that we had become, he became vociferous about our plans again—describing his wishes for us through a romanticized scope.
But walking through that door alone introduced a series of others that begged to be open—and I held the key.
Since then, the illusions I painted in my mind manifested in front of my face in the form of delayed flights, new cuisines, countless photographs, and several new “second homes.”
Although he wanted to give me the world, he only gave me good intentions—so I made my own world without him.