Here's Our Chance

I hate the saying “You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” don’t you? I imagine that everyone has felt this before and doesn’t need it constantly repeated just to rub it in our face… If only it wasn’t so applicable to our lives.

She and I got out of my car after date number…I can’t even imagine. We’d been together for a little over a year and all signs pointed to this being “the one.” However, me being the young man I was, I was still too afraid to tell her exactly how I felt and, you guessed it, to tell her that I loved her…even though I did.

I walked her to her door to kiss her goodnight when I noticed apprehension in her step. We always had such a carefree relationship that any signs of trouble made me panic. When I asked her what was wrong, the answer was simple:

“I love you…Do you love me too?”

Yes. I did. Every part of me loved every last part of her and I wanted nothing more than to yell it at the top of my lungs. The funny thing about life is, sometimes we don’t even voice our most passionate of feelings just in fear of hearing ourselves say them out loud for the first time.

I paused. I stuttered. I completely blew it. I told her that I needed more time to figure out exactly how I felt.

And now she’s with someone else.

If I could do it all over again, things would have gone much differently. Simply put, when she said “Do you love me?”, I would have, without thought, replied:

“Yes.”