If romantic love is real and true, does it never really fade away?

Feelings from the past can often lie waiting for us to find. Sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. Friday morning, the past showed up at my house in the form of a lilac-colored envelope that a woman had sealed for me 19 years ago.

I knew the handwriting before I even read her name.

I started some renovations in my house last year and I moved boxes around that hadn’t been touched for a very long time. I had planned to go through the boxes, but I never did. Friday morning, an envelope atop one of those boxes caught my eye. I absentmindedly picked it up. It was unopened, but there was a handwritten note on the outside.

“Dear David,” the note started.

It was dated June 12, 2006. Even without seeing the confident signature and the flourishes at the end of the loving note on the outside of the envelope, I knew who it was from. I haven’t talked to her for many years, but she and I once loved each other very much. We almost got married. There had been regret for both of us when things were over — and that regret was never resolved.

What did this unopened old card say on the inside? It made my heart do flip flops as I looked at her handwriting and I wondered what it might say.

There’s a part of me who misses her. She was brilliant. She was beautiful. She was loving and she was kind. She was just as flawed as I was.

I really miss the time when a woman loved me enough to send cards and packages filled with funny and creative and loving little gifts. But do I really miss her? Or do I just miss having someone who thought I was special enough to love me? I really can’t say.

I’ve spent the day thinking about what happens to love. Does that love die when two people go off in completely different directions and start lives that are far away from one another?

She married someone else. I loved someone else after her. I dated a number of other women, too, most of whom were memorable in one way or another.

When we fall in love with someone new, we tend to think that the new person is “the right one” who we should have been with all along. We like to think we were lucky that we didn’t marry that other person. And sometimes that’s true.

I think of several women who I sincerely loved — and who sincerely loved me — who I’m grateful that I didn’t marry. They were all wonderful women who were part of the development I went through at the time, but they weren’t necessarily right for the person I was becoming. Or for the person I’ve become today.

There are a couple of women who I could have been happy building a family and a partnership with. At least I think so. I’ll never know.

Either way, what happened to all of that love from the past? Is some of it still alive?

I have this notion that if I’ve ever really loved someone, part of that love stays with me forever. Even if I’m not pining for her anymore. Even if I’ll never talk to her again. I have a feeling that if love was ever really genuine, you can’t kill all of it. Some of it remains there in my heart, even if I’ve moved on and I’m eager for someone else to love me.

That doesn’t mean I’m hoping to resume something from these failed love relationships from the past. It just means that what I experienced with some of them — including this woman — was real enough and powerful enough to affect me until the day I die.

I’d like to think that every time I’ve loved a woman — and every time a woman has loved me — she has contributed toward making me who I am today. I’ve learned from every relationship, sometimes from mistakes I made and sometimes from ways in which I was unintentionally hurt.

So I appreciate every woman I’ve loved. I appreciate every woman who’s loved me. And I hope each one has made me a better man — and more prepared for the woman who will eventually come along and be the final “love of my life.”

I never opened that card that I found Friday morning. I’m not sure I ever will. For now, I’m going to leave it alone.

I really do miss the time when someone loved me enough to send such things. Part of me would like to read what she wrote and relive those old feelings. But there’s another part of me that feels as though something long lost like this is best left undisturbed.

So I’m leaving this love to memory — sealed, like the card, in a past I no longer need to open.