Fellow Traveler

"Although we grow older, there is always more the universe has to teach us. It is even a greater gift when one encounters a fellow traveler with that same child like spirit who wishes to grow and learn and marvel along with you."

I heard these words today, and it made me think about someone who has been haunting my thoughts for a long time. I kept trying to figure out why I can't seem to let go and move on, and why I still grieve. Today, I realized that it is because for the first time in years, I had found a fellow traveler. From the night we met, we clicked and I felt like we had known each other for ages. Spending time together made me feel like a kid again; free of the day to day constraints of being an adult. Spending time with him filled me with joy and made me hopeful, and I felt less alone because I found someone else who got it. Here, like me, was another person filled with so much darkness, but who did everything in their power to be a light for others. For the first time in a decade, I found someone I could see having a future with; however, like most adults, we screwed it up and it ended.

I know now that as much as I miss him, I also miss that feeling of having had someone in my life that understood and appreciated those parts of me that others always rejected. I have only known a few people in my life that made me feel that way, and having had that again and then losing it, made me feel alone in a world where I feel like I never belonged. I grieve the loss of what was with him, but I also grieve the lose of those fellow travelers who came before; and I fear I will not meet another.

Flogging Molly 'If I Ever Leave This World Alive'