Catharsis

I met a woman.
Of course, the fact that I met a woman isn't entirely profound in and of itself, since hardly a day goes by when the average person isn't meeting someone new and the odds are slightly greater than 50/50 that this someone new will be a woman. It is slightly more uncommon for me to meet someone, regardless of gender, being as reclusive as I have chosen to be over the years...but that is not my point.
I suppose that it isn't entirely accurate for me to state that I met the woman in question with the implication being that this just happened. In all honesty, I was introduced to her a couple of years ago, but that was the end of it, an introduction and hardly anything more. This introduction was an awkward one to say the least and the first impression I provided her with was substantially less than charming.
In my defense I was taken aback with that introduction. It turned out that the woman I was meeting was an individual that I had found myself admiring from the shadows for a number of years before, terrified to draw her attention for fear of the rejection that I simply assumed would be the natural outcome of any attempt to approach her. I was in a state of turmoil when she stood there directly in front of me, and I have a nasty habit of saying all of the wrong things under circumstances like that...I did not disappoint.
During the following years I saw her only in passing and did my very best to remain unseen, nervous that I would end up reinforcing the initial negative impression with further stupidity on my part.
It was quite recently that everything changed, and I have come to know her very well.
She is, to put it simply, perfect for me in every conceivable way that I could imagine...the sole exception being that she is married, and not just married but happily so.
The problem that I am encountering is that I am apparently as perfect for her as she is for me. The two of us embody for one another almost exactly what we most desire in a partner. If I were a more selfish man I might just wish for something to happen that could dissolve their marriage, the more dramatic the better, but I can't bring myself to wish anything like that upon her...or him, since I trust her when she tells me how good he is for her, and I know that she does love him regardless of whether he's as right for her as I happen to be.
I have loved before; as damaged as I am, I have still been capable of feeling that way. What I feel when I look at her, hear her voice, or even think of her...it eclipses everything that I had thought of as love before. She loves me too, and that only makes it harder to deal with.
I don't want to let go of her, and I feel that it's better to have her as a friend than nothing at all, but I know that it cannot remain exclusively a friendship between she and I...neither of us are that strong.
I met a woman, and she is changing my life in ways that I never could have anticipated.
I met a woman...and I love her.