Yearning for You, Whoever You Are

To the ones who are missing a half

Apr 27, 2025

The hopeless romantic is a cliché, a character who believes in things modern, ‘intellectual’ people don’t believe in anymore. Things like true love, soul mates, and the idea of fate or destiny.

In our ‘enlightened’ society, believing in soul mates is often seen as a touching sentiment with no real weight. It’s often met with a polite, “Oh that’s nice. Happy for you,” or a well-meaning, “Hope you find them one day.”

To the romantic, though, it can feel patronizing, like when we indulge a child’s adamant conviction in the reality of Santa, or when they enthusiastically declare, “I want to be an astronaut when I grow up!” We say, “Oh that’s nice. You can be whatever you want to be, kid.”

Yet, there’s a persistent feeling that many romantics carry, something that, even if logically unfounded, feels undeniably real. It’s a feeling that seems as whimsical as believing in Santa, yet stirs profound ache and longing.

It’s a realization that might dawn on them after long nights of yearning for a light not seen, wondering why the struggle is so pronounced for them. But when they do finally realize why, it is cause for either joy or even deeper sorrow.

That something is this: the deep feeling of being only half of a whole, a person with a soul-shaped void that instinctively yearns to be filled by another. It’s a fundamental desire to be united, to be made one, to be made whole.

It’s the feeling of missing something… or someone. Missing them both in the sense of not having them… and in the sense of wanting them back. And you wonder: how can you miss someone so much, whom you’ve never met?

Some may say this yearning itself is evidence of soul mates. How can we long so profoundly for something that doesn’t exist?

But the more skeptical person might argue that soul mates are still just a fantasy, and that this ache is doomed to remain forever unfulfilled—thereby deepening the sorrow.

Either way, the romantic soul is tormented by a promise that remains elusive. It’s a tantalizing whisper that an almost otherworldly intimacy is possible, yet seems denied them by Fate herself. What does she hold against them? What offering does she require? Or is their heart merely a playground for her cruel amusement? Does God gleefully watch His children nurse their longings unfulfilled?

Spiritual traditions that believe in the idea of past lives would say that this longing is indeed rooted in something real—the residue of a past relationship in a former life you have no memory of. Some fantasize that soul mates will find each other again in each reincarnation. But others would say that this is not so, that what is past is past, that what was meant for you then is not meant for you now.

If this is true, then this past relationship must be grieved and let go.

It’s a strange feeling: grieving the loss of someone you don’t remember.

A letter…

You. Yes, you. The phantom weight beside me on the park bench, the absence in the living room, the name whispered in the echoing chamber of my skull. I’ve never met you, never seen the curve of your hand against a skyline, never heard the particular cadence of your voice saying my name. And yet, the knowledge of you is a dull ache, a persistent thrumming beneath the noise of daily living, a sense of absence so profound it feels like a presence in itself. This cavernous space inside, this soul-shaped hole, sculpted precisely, agonizingly, for you.

The others see it, the way my gaze drifts, searches, forever scanning crowds, faces, the curve of strangers’ backs, as if I might somehow recognize you, plucked from the anonymity by some instinct deeper than logic. “Bless his heart,” they seem to think, their eyes holding pity and mild amusement. They understand the idea of longing, perhaps, but not this. Not this specific missing of you.

But how can I miss you? You, who are a landscape unknown, a history unshared, a future unarrived. It’s unsensible, unreasonable… yet undeniable. It’s not just loneliness; it’s a particular form of deprivation. As if I was once whole, interwoven, a half of a tapestry that was severed. And now I wander the world as a frayed loose end, forever seeking the other half of the weave.

The thought chills me—the possibility that this ache is merely a malfunction, that you are a fantasy I have conjured out of desperate need, a mirage shimmering on the horizon of my own desert.

Or maybe this used to be real. A memory. Are you a memory? A phantom limb of a connection lost in another lifetime? Did we walk together once, under different skies? If I stand by a pool, would I see a reflection of us in that shimmering, glassy portal to worlds beyond?

The idea is both comforting and terrifying. Comforting, because it imbues this illogical longing with history. Terrifying, because it suggests that what was, is not longer. That your existence belongs irrevocably to the past.

To grieve you, then—to mourn the residue of something I did not have a chance to experience—is what is left for me to do. It’s a sorrow unlike any other. A sorrow without image, sound, nor touch. A sorrow for someone whose face I cannot picture, whose name I do not know. A ghost of a grief, for a happiness I cannot remember possessing with you.

And so I continue in this world with this burden, the knowledge of your absence. And you, whoever you are, remain the silent center of this strange existence, both sacred and absurd. And I wait. Forever tracing the edges of this soul-shaped space, forever listening for the faintest echo of your being, forever missing you in a way that defies time, defies reason, defies everything but the undeniable, terrifying, beautiful reality of this aching. Yearning for you. Always, yearning for you.