🎶🎼 “Fall at your feet” – Crowded House
🎵🎶 “Hold me now” – Johnny Logan
“We could have been married for almost twenty years.”
Perhaps a slightly optimistic estimate, generously rounded up, but not entirely impossible.
He is, after all, the man who stole my heart so many years ago. Saying I was head over heels in love barely scratches the surface of what I felt back then.
Our relationship was brief, but deeply intense.
As for who ended it, well, our memories seem to tell rather different stories these days. 😉
Over the years, we crossed paths every now and then. Every few years, always with the same quiet familiarity. This weekend, after six or seven years, we met again. We happen to live near each other once more, so perhaps it won’t take another seven years before we meet again. Or perhaps it will. Life has a way of deciding these things for us. 😌
To him, I remained the one that got away.
To me, he is the man who first showed me just how profoundly you can love another person. In the short time we shared, we collected moments that time has never managed to erase.
Yet what matters most is not what once was.
It is what remains.
And that is surprisingly difficult to describe.
It is more than friendship.
Yet no longer romantic love.
I believe love is ultimately a choice, and neither of us fully made that choice back then. That’s why I’ve never quite embraced the comfort of “if only…” or “wrong place, wrong time.”
Not because there wasn’t enough love.
Quite the opposite.
There was love.
But there were other forces, circumstances, fears, responsibilities and timing, that kept us from choosing each other wholeheartedly.
In the meantime, life has quietly worked its quiet miracles.
We have both evolved.
The pieces of our puzzles, and the landscapes of our hearts, no longer fit together in quite the same way.
And still…
Something remains.
Something uniquely ours.
Something gentle.
Something deeply familiar.
Just different from what it once was.
Like a small oasis of familiar ground in a landscape that has completely changed.
It reminded me once again of a sentence that has followed me for years:
A story is never truly finished.
Every now and then, we hugged.
Which is saying something, because I’m not naturally much of a hugger.
But those hugs felt… right.
At one point we spoke about my dream of bringing a little more love and connection into the world, in my own way.
His scepticism was unmistakable.
And that’s perfectly okay.
After all, who doesn’t long for more love?
That’s how I see it.
During one of those hugs, he smiled and said:
“You’re Ctrl + Alt + Delete Maaike.”
I laughed.
I don’t think he realised how beautiful those words actually were.
Because isn’t that one of the greatest gifts we can offer another human being?
To become someone’s Ctrl + Alt + Delete.
A hug that quiets everything for a moment.
A reset.
A brief pause from pressure. From noise.
A place where someone can simply arrive.
Where the mind falls silent.
And the heart becomes loud.
It is no longer the love we once knew.
Yet, somehow, it is still love.
Because some people never become a chapter you simply close.
They remain part of your story, not in the same role, but with the same quiet significance.
And perhaps…
Perhaps I managed to soften his scepticism, if only a little.
To let him believe, once again, in how beautiful love can be.
In all its countless forms.
❤️
If these words resonated with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share this essay with someone who might need it today. ❤️
Love in Action – Maaike
I give words to what connects & what separates us.
To moments that move us.
To what builds bridges between hearts & people.
In the hope of creating a little more love & connection.
For everyone who has ever struggled to understand someone else & themselves
❣️
Love,
Always,
Maaike
Love in action 
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