Unrequited Closure

So I don't think it's all that uncommon for people to have feelings surrounding a relationship long after we have stopped seeing that person. What I'm wondering about are the best ways to let go those things that may be holding us back. In my situation, I'm thinking of a person I have known half my life. We never really escalated our encounters to a full-fledged romantic relationship but it would have seemed so from the outside. Nothing was lacking except the commitment. My feelings for this person were magnified to a degree that still gives me shivers. He had equally deep feelings but for him, these feelings hovered comfortably in the friend zone while I was shamelessly desperate for more. We tried so valiantly to say everything at the end, not really sure it was the end as there had been so many ends for us before that one. It takes a goodly amount of time, I think, to start to see something like this with even a shred of objectivity. For me to see that when he said, so emphatically, "Don't settle!", he may have been talking about himself. It took me years to see how much I was willing to give up for him. Even now, when I haven't heard his voice in three years, I'm overcome with emotion at the thought of actually seeing him in person. How is it that this person affected me, or still affects me, so deeply, when it wasn't meant to be. Well, I think I've made peace with that part of it for now. I need to believe that he was put in my life for me to learn about love. I learned from him the depth and breadth of the love I have to give. I learned what it feels like to be treated lovingly, respectfully. I learned what it feels like to make love and be so in-tune with your partner that all else melts away, and then suddenly returns but as a part of you. I learned about comfortable silence. I learned about unquestioning, unwavering support. I learned about being in love with someone who is a friend first. I even learned a bit about the beauty in myself. These are all great things to know, so what brings me to the keyboard today to whine to anyone who will listen? Fear. I know that I can love someone with all I have. Having been mostly single for five years, I think I can even do that without giving up who I am- now that's progress!! But I also know the danger. So I find myself, as I so often do, struggling with balance. Fighting between two, or more, instincts. The deepest instinct tells me that all is well. The world is an intrinsically kind place, in spite of all we see. The man who I'm imagining will come into my life and we will have BIG love. He will love me back in every way and all will be happy and well. Sounds great. But then there's the fear. (Oh Rozencrantz, I am afflicted!) Will I be able to give of myself in that way again? Will I be able to trust another? More importantly, will I be able to trust myself? After having spent so long believing that someone was my one, only to learn that I was very wrong, how can I trust my heart? And Goddess help us if I start letting my mind make relationship decisions! So if I know that seeing or even talking to that past lover is a mistake, I know that initiating contact is detrimental, where do I go for closure? Any contact between us would try so hard to be friendship and would come out twisted with want and sodden with fantasy. And that's if we managed to keep it out of the bedroom, which we never did in the past. So to the question of my moment- Is it functional to imagine closure? I know I could write a letter and burn it, releasing all the uckh into the Universe, but I crave a dialogue. Is it totally crazy for me to re-invent a last conversation? One in which we both really say everything. One from which we walk away feeling content, feeling heard and understood. One that gives me the courage to go forth and the strength to love again.