you know sometimes you just look at someone you love more than anything and you feel this… this thing in your stomach like a cold knot and it’s not about them it’s about you and this terrible feeling that you’re just not enough not for them not for what they need we were at a party for her new project you know the big one the one that’s going to make her a NAME and the room was packed with people from all over from different countries different backgrounds and she just… she shines in those places it’s like she glows she walks in and everyone turns to her and she’s laughing and telling stories and making everyone feel like they’re the only person in the room and I’m just there in the corner nursing my seltzer watching her watching her be so effortlessly everything I’m not and she came over once and pulled me into a conversation for a minute something about blockchain but I could barely follow what they were saying all these buzzwords and quick jokes and I just sort of smiled and nodded and then she was off again swept away by someone else’s enthusiasm and it wasn’t her fault not at all she was just being herself being wonderful being magnetic and I was just… me still stuck by the wall still trying to make eye contact with someone who wasn’t looking my way and later when we were in the cab heading home she was still buzzing still talking about the connections she made the funny thing so-and-so said and I just listened I always listen but inside this dread started to build this really heavy dread that she’s going to realize one day that I’m just… not that guy not the one who can keep up not the one who can make those rooms light up like she does not the one who can just connect with anyone about anything we’ve been together so long decades really and I’ve always been the quiet one the one who builds things who makes things work behind the scenes and she’s always been the one who brings people together who makes the world feel bigger and brighter and I love that about her I truly do but lately it feels like a chasm like she’s on one side of a great big canyon and I’m on the other and I just keep thinking what if she finally looks across and realizes she wants someone who can meet her there on her side of the canyon you know someone who’s as vibrant and as social and as big as she is and I just… I don’t think I can ever be that person not now not ever and the thought just eats at me it really does