Thoughts because of seeing my high school sweet heart

I don't think you ever knew how much I loved you, back when we were still kids, learning about life together in high school.  You never knew how much you meant to me.  You never knew how much your smile lit my whole world.  You had no clue just how deep the anguish went when you said goodbye and went on to bigger, brighter, better things than what we shared together.  You grasped the dreams that burned so brilliantly through your eyes and burned their way into my very soul, running with them and making them come true for you.

Me?  I had my dreams as well.  Grand dreams of love and life and the future.  Some of them I managed to hold on to, if only barely.  Others went the way of the dinosaur...... the way of our youthful affection for each other.

I learned eventually to live without those dreams of glory. 

I went on with my life, and every time I fell down, I made myself get back up again.

I even managed to quit thinking about you, after enough time had passed and you hadn't come back into my life.

It's taken me more than 25 years, but I finally managed to find someone to replace all that you were in my heart and my life.  Someone who shares dreams with me, who's smile lights up my whole world like yours used to, who's happiness has become the center of my being and my own happiness, like yours used to be.

We went our separate ways long ago.  We can never go back to where we were - or who we were - back then.  We've changed, life has changed, the world has changed, even our memories of what we did and who we were and what the world was like have changed.

You helped make me who I am today.  Your companionship during my early years helped to form me, and to set the expectations I've got now.  Your image was what other men were held up next to, only to fall short of what I wanted out of the man in my life.    Thank you - for having been who you were, for helping me to be who I was and who I became, and for having been my friend.