When we met, I was stoic. I was a block wall that had been man-made; piece by piece had been piled one atop the other until I could no longer see out and was miserably numb enough to not want anyone in. The person you saw was hollowed out, no longer searching for meaning but instead continuously running in place. The road was no friend of mine, and the streets didn’t have any familiarity. My eyes, the same ones that once saw a life mapped out in every intricate detail, had now fallen victim to tunnel vision. I was on a hamster’s wheel; how could you have possibly expected me to veer off of that path, away from the rut I had made with my very own two feet?

When you saw me, I couldn’t have known what you were seeing or what you were trying to see past. All I saw was a girl who had a series of failures. I am good at being loved, but they don’t stay. I am great at loving, but I can promise you I will run if I am over exposed. I am fantastic friend, but my advice may not come as easily if I am asked to withhold my own experiences. I cannot be objective anymore. I am the marrying kind, but I have lost my adhesive for any level of commitment. Nothing ever sticks anymore, it seems.

I noticed you first, and should you ever request, I will argue this for the rest of my life. When I saw you, your face and your eyes are not what surprised me as much as the way I felt my face and eyes react.

I woke up.

My heart began beating slightly faster, and as a result, I started to pick up my speed. The paradox here is that I was unable to run away. I wanted you to see what you were doing to me. I wanted all of your attention, even with twenty other people- all of them strangers, as you should have been- in the room.

I wasn’t glowing the day you saw me. I was thriving off of someone else’s confidence. I had just had a conversation with a friend of mine and we spoke about love. About how I needed to break away from it altogether and re-learn how to love me and be okay on my own. Of course, this coming from someone who is happily married and was having an argument with her husband on whose turn it was to clean the bathroom among other marital woes, made me equal parts happy and sad. I wanted to argue with someone about household duties. I wanted to talk to someone about a dish-filled sink on our kitchen.

I just wanted someone, but not just anyone.

Whatever it was that you saw- the glow you keep bringing up- was just residuals from a fire that used to burn so brightly. And because you saw it, you saved me. My fear was that it would go out- and go out quietly- before someone noticed it and then it would be too late. For so long, I had been the sole witness of my own demise and I watched myself become dull and diluted. I would look in the mirror and talk to myself because no one else was there. I would hold myself up to save me from falling on my own face. I ran to erase my past. I ran to keep my focus on what was straight ahead even though I felt like I couldn’t see two feet in front of me.

I ran.

Right into you.

I am scared of loss. I am also scared of gain. In fact, I think the two are so closely intertwined that sometimes I teeter on the brink of middle ground and hope it opens up and swallows me whole. Or in the pieces I was convinced my life had become.

I was so close to being completely and utterly burned.

You are putting me back together, and I finally feel like I fit into myself again. Thank you for taking a notice to someone who had lost sight of herself because she was a hundred miles ahead, a thousand yards behind, and a million steps away from the girl she had loved being. The girl who knew how to love and be loved and looked as though she could set the world on fire with her glow.

Instead of watching me burn, now you can watch us shine.