There’s no word in the English language that is quite as painful as: almost.
I almost caught the winning touchdown.
I almost won the lottery.
I almost got that promotion at work.
ALMOST bears the weight of so many unfulfilled dreams, unrealized ambitions, and roads not taken. The loneliest of adverbs, it conveys the tingling feel of someone’s fingertips tentatively grazing yours yet the hand never sliding in to fully interlock - or the soft thud of the boarding door closing mere moments before you run up from two terminals away breathless and sweaty - or the rush of opening the envelope from your dream school only to immediately read the word ‘waitlist’.
But no almost in life carries quite the stricken anguish as finding a man who is almost perfect for you, soclose to a flawless match that you think the one difference can’t help but be worked out…
And yet…it cannot be overcome.
The heartbreak that comes along with losing an almost lover isn’t the breathtaking pain of your existence shattering into a million pieces after someone’s betrayal. Or the cold numbed pain of the chest that has labored for too long, pumping blood hard enough for two hearts until the exhaustion becomes overwhelming and the beats slowly fade into nothingness.
No, the heartbreak of an almost love is the pain of watching your secret castle of hope in the clouds instantly dissipate without a trace. It’s the pain of knowing that there was nothing you could have done, nothing he could have done, no wreckage to sort through, no black box to find…after all, nothing was actually built and you can’t point to pieces of half-formed dreams in bitterness or anger, you must simply accept what is and let go of what is not meant to be.
Through it all, the heart still beats strongly enough to know that it will, sooner rather than later, emerge unbruised and vibrant red, ready once again to be offered up to someone else who is deemed worthy of such a prize. Yet the current cracks among the unexpectedly vacant ventricles ache with the shimmering potential that was nearly within your grasp.
Because right now, you are still on the lifeguard tower, hands covering your mouth as the relentless sounds of the waves carry away your sobs, the sleeve of your sweatshirt damp from a mixture of the salt night air and the saltier tears running down your face, telling yourself it’s ok to mourn an almost love with a fierceness that belies the length of the time you’ve known him, even though you may feel that you don’t have the right to the rivulets softly streaking the sand dust clinging to your flushed cheeks.
At the end of the day, you’re not mourning mistreatment, the shadows of a former self, or any of the other critical injuries the callous claws of life have previously inflicted.
You’re mourning staying cozy in bed while he climbs over you to shut the shades against the morning sun streaming into the room, even though you’re the closest one to the window. You’re mourning eating half of your bagel with cream cheese, because he traded his half for yours when you didn’t even ask. You’re mourning the feeling of his hand on your waist as you walked anywhere together, the casual touch healing parts of you you didn’t even know were damaged.
You’re not mourning because of how they broke you, you’re mourning because he reminded you that you should have never accepted less from anyone else who came before.
And because of this, an almost lover inspires immense gratitude. People who come into your life who nearly, but not quite, fit exactly what you want your partner to be remind you that what you’re looking for is not impossible to find, and in fact, if you stop wasting your time with people who can’t even touch the bar that you’ve set for yourself, you’ll find people willing to catapult over it and more.
So here’s to you, my almost lover…thank you for showing me how I deserve to be treated. Thank you for being fully and completely yourself without apologies and inviting the same from me. And most importantly, thank you for letting me go, so I can fiercely open my heart for the right man who won’t make me cry almost! but softly sigh, finally.