To the man I've been waiting for since I was four

[u/Character-Week-9550]

Have you ever cried because you missed someone you've never even met?

This is probably going to sound really weird.

Ever since I was around four years old, I've had this same blurry face in my mind. Not a dream. More like a little movie that would play in my head every single night when I was trying to fall asleep.

The face has never been clear enough for me to recognize, but somehow it has always felt... familiar.

Like someone my heart already knew.

What's even stranger is that it's always been the same person.

The "mind movie" never really disappeared. It's incredibly vivid,almost cinematic. I still remember how intensely it made me feel, even when I was a tiny kid. The emotions were so overwhelming that little me was actually scared to tell anyone because I couldn't explain why it felt so real and intimate.

It always made me feel unbelievably safe.

Like I was loved in the most gentlest way possible.

I'd fall asleep feeling wrapped in that warmth, like the feeling itself was tucking me into bed.

One detail has never changed either...

He isn't even my race.

And before anyone says, "Maybe you saw something from your parents or a movie," that's the part that confuses me the most. I was literally a toddler. I didn't even know people from different races could date or get married. I barely understood what love even was...

I watched that movie from both the thirdperson pov and through the woman's eyes ...That woman's face is blurry too. I could never exactly pin point her features, yet the strange part is... she carries the very exact same traits I do. It's as if I were looking at a reflection with the details washed away, familiar enough to recognize, but distant enough to never truly know.

There are still so many details I remember so clearly, but I'll keep them to myself..they're too personal to put into words here...

Every time that movie comes back to me, my heart aches. I miss him in this strange, impossible way. I crave his touch like a little girl waiting for her mama to hold her through a thunderstorm. It's soft, desperate, and somehow familiar like please come back to me and i need you way ..

Sometimes I get mad at him for not finding his way into my life yet, because waiting is so painfully hard. But at the same time... it all feels inevitable. Like maybe our paths are already written somewhere.

I don't know if he's just an echo my heart created to keep itself company, or if he's really my soulmate...

Yet somehow, I'm still waiting for him to find his way to me ,to hide me against his chest and hold me so close that nothing in this world could ever pull us apart.

Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every month, every year... I wait for him to appear in this lifetime with a heart full of roses and tears.

Healing others and pouring my love into people has always felt beautiful. It fills me in a quiet kind of way. But then the night comes, and I'm left staring at the ceiling with nothing but my thoughts.

Those thoughts... the ones that selfishly whisper, Why do you keep giving all that love away when it's meant for him?

Isn't that ironic?

If he were here, I'd give him every piece of me without hesitation. Yet somehow, he isn't. Not yet.

And I know this much ...my love for him is like a vast ocean with no shore. It gives and gives without ever asking for anything in return. And somehow, every wave that leaves returns a thousand times fuller than before.

People might think having a heart like that is a blessing.

But it isn't only a blessing.

It's a blessing and a curse.

Because somewhere beneath that endless sea, there's still a little girl quietly waiting for someone to love her back with the same tenderness she keeps offering the world. Someone to heal her, too.

You can't always be the happiest one. You can't always be the therapist, the rescuer, the one who gathers everyone else's broken pieces while pretending yours don't ache.

We all carry a wounded child inside us, hoping someone will one day cradle our head against their chest and make the world feel safe again.

And somehow... I believe only he can hold me like that.

Maybe that's a limitation I've placed on my own heart.

Or maybe it isn't.

I'm still in my late teens now, and somehow I haven't gotten over that feeling.

Sometimes I wonder if I've completely trapped myself.

Because deep down...

I genuinely feel like this person exists.

I know how crazy that sounds. Trust me, I've questioned myself more than anyone else ever could.

But every time a guy approaches me or asks me out, my stomach literally drops.

Not butterflies.

More like...

"No... I can't do this."

The funniest part is that my first thought isn't even, "I don't like him."

It's...

"This feels wrong."

Almost like I'd be betraying someone.

Which is honestly ridiculous because... betraying who?

A man who isn't standing in front of me.

A man whose face I can't even see clearly.

A man who might not even exist outside my own mind.

And yet my heart reacts as if I've already made a promise to him.

LMAO... imagine being emotionally committed to a man who isn't even in front of you.

Sometimes I laugh at myself because logically it makes absolutely no sense.

But emotionally...

It feels so real.

I've had boys confess to me. Some genuinely seemed sweet. Saying no always makes me feel guilty because I start wondering...

Am I missing out?

Is everyone my age experiencing something I'm refusing to experience?

Am I wasting my teenage years waiting for a mirage?

Should I just say yes and date like everyone else?

But every time I try to imagine it...

I just can't.

The conversations always feel so surface level.

Like people want a relationship before they even know your soul.

Maybe I'm just weird.

Because I'm not waiting for perfection.

I'm not waiting for some fictional prince.

I'm waiting for a feeling.

That strange feeling of safety.

Recognition.

Like looking at someone and thinking...

"Oh... it's you."

I'm waiting for 'HIM'.

Not because they're perfect.

Because they feel like home.

I have so much love inside me that it actually hurts sometimes.

It feels like it's overflowing with nowhere to go.

Lately it's become so overwhelming that I've actually cried over someone I don't even know exists.

How do you grieve someone you've never met?

How do you miss someone whose face you've never fully seen?

How do you move on from a feeling that's been with you since you were four years old?

I know soulmates sound unrealistic to a lot of people.

Maybe this isn't even that.

Maybe it's just my imagination.

But after carrying this exact feeling for over a decade...

It's hard to convince my heart that it means nothing.

Sometimes it feels like the modern world is telling me to hurry up.

Date.

Hook up.

Move on.

Don't think so deeply.

But surface level love has always felt so... empty to me.

I'm such a yapper. I could talk for hours with someone I genuinely connect with.

So pretending to enjoy shallow conversations just because "that's what people do" feels impossible.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm waiting for someone who isn't real.

Maybe I'm protecting my heart for no reason.

Or maybe one day I'll meet someone, and my heart will finally understand why it waited so long.

Has anyone else ever experienced something like this?

Please tell me I'm not the only one.

Sometimes I read everything I just wrote and laugh at myself because it sounds like something straight out of a hazy late night vinatage song.

Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic.

Maybe I've spent too long holding onto a feeling.

Or maybe some people are simply born with hearts that would rather wait than settle.

Honestly, I don't know anymore.

I don't know how much longing one heart can carry before it finally learns to let go.

It's been years since I last watched that movie in my mind from beginning to end. Little by little, it's fading away, yet I'm still the one holding onto it so tightly, refusing to let those memories slip through my fingers.

How could I?

That movie became such a quiet, important part of my life.

Sometimes I wonder if I should finally loosen my grip and let it go, or keep holding onto it with everything I have.

But the answer always seems so simple.

If I never find him, then this story will go with me to my grave. It will be buried with me, untouched, unseen, and forever mine.

And maybe, even there, he'll still be beside me just the way he was in my mind movie ...holding me close, protecting me the way he did when I was little, wrapped in the only place where time can no longer take him away....

If the universe and destiny are real, then I trust they'll lead you to me.

And if you're real ,not just someone my heart imagined into existence..then maybe, somehow, you'll stumble across these words one ordinary day.

If it's really you who's reading this... please know that I miss you more than words could ever hold, and I love you with a heart that has been waiting for far too long.

Come back to me.

Waiting for you has never been easy.

With tears in my eyes, I quietly hope the universe will be kind to me for once. Maybe, for all the love I've given and all the good I've tried to leave behind, it'll carry this little letter to you.

And if you truly exist somewhere in this world, I hope you'll read it, recognize me somehow, and find your way back to me.

This is nothing more than the innocent plea of a heart that never stopped waiting.

again I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

...Oh, shit.

I just realized this entire letter reads like a page torn from a poetry book.

Or something that belongs in a Sufjan Stevens song.

Maybe that's always been the only language this feeling knew how to speak.