I Really Wish I Weren't So in Love

Today is three days into my journey. I'm starting to see now that staying in this would continue to cause me a world of hurt and yet, I am not ready to give him up. Such is the strength of my love for him. But I am starting to see that he cares not about me. And part of me is starting to wonder if I should just start trying to leave this behind. I am afraid. Afraid of navigating this world without him. He is not only the man I love, he is also something I cling on to, and to me he symbolises hope; a hope that the childlike part of me wishes to believe in. That true love, or what seems like it will prevail in the end. That love, exists for me and will prevail. He is love to me. A part of me is afraid that giving him up is me giving up my last chance for love because somewhere inside I believe that I can do it no more. I can fall for no more men and have my heart broken all over again. And if this isn't going to turn out then there will be no more after this. And another part of me wants there to be no more after this because I love him and I want no other. So in a lot of ways, this feels like my shot at love and so I have needed with a desperation for this to work out. 

But every single time I remember what he said to me, it stings and I feel that sharp pain inside my chest. Every single time I remember what he wrote to me, it pains me and I want to turn away but I can't seem to. And every single time I remember what happened, it breaks my heart and turns my mind inside out. I have questioned the fairness of what happened for days and weeks and months. I have spent much tears crying over the questionable fairness of it. Because it hurt me to the core. It shaped and moulded my character in a way that I never wanted it to be and yet I still can't seem to get over my burning love for him. Even through all that anger and hurt.  It was to me, like a message from the world confirming every single fear that seemed to be lurking at the back of my mind about my worth to be loved. And if I wasn't questioning it then, it made me question it now. I didn't understand how it could be so that it could have gone so horribly wrong. How within a single day and night, my heart was broken many times over and trampled by a herd of horses. And how should it be fair?

Every single time I think about it, it winds me. It knocks me off balance and it turns my world and my logic and my reason and my mind inside out. It turns my faith inside out. And it turns my hope away. Far far away and despair comes in to take its place. They say that there are many sorrows in this world, and love is one of them. I do not want to feel guilty for feeling miserable over my broken heart. I do not want to feel like I am being ungrateful. I am extremely grateful but my broken heart is also very real. I want to spend my days curled up and crying over my broken heart. I want to spend hours without needing to worry about responsibilities, crying over him. I want to be free to express and feel my misery without having to lug it all around with me in a heavy sack over my back and having to explain and justify it away to everyone and to myself. I love him, he doesn't love me and now I am fucking sad about it! So what! I am nowhere near over him and I am still very dearly in love him. I really wish I weren't. 

The Prayer.

Father in Heaven, if it is the time for me to let go of him and if I absolutely must then give me the courage and the strength to get through what must happen. Lord, I am not ready to let him go, and I don't know if I ever will be. I don't know if these are the words of a girl with a lack of courage to be alone and to let go of another love; all I know is that I love him Father and I am not ready to let him go. Even though all he's done and the words he has said ring through my ears and play in my mind, and with every replay they cut a deep gash in my already bleeding heart, I love him and I am not ready to let him go. A part of me, the childlike part keeps thinking that a love such as this must surely prevail. How can it not? It is unthinkable! But I am not looking at the world as it is. And another part of me knows that it is not true. Why must I fall in love with someone such as he? Why couldn't I just not, and spare myself such agony. Why must I make this step? I don't understand Father in Heaven and I wish you would just give me the answers because my poor heart cannot wonder anymore. It's broken beyond repair and all that I thought I believed in in love is slipping away through my fingers. I cry now for love. So if I must let him go, something I believe I may never be able to do, then give me the courage and give me the strength Lord, for I cannot do it alone. 

He doesn't love me. Why doesn't he love me? Why can't he love me? 

When I could demand affection and not be ashamed by it. 

Conversations I Can Only Have With Myself.

"The mania is gone I guess and now all that's left is a deep, deep sadness." 

She reached out for my hand and hugged me close to her freshly floral scented body. The perfume comforted me somehow, like a touch of realism reminding me that she is there for me now. The hug was warm and comforting and I wept silent tears into her shoulders. 

We both know there was nothing we could do. And the best thing to do would be to just ride it out. When did this get so hard? 

Getting Better Every Day.

Tonight it's just me and my broken heart,

And the endless preview of more nights to come

In which I will languish ever in my broken heart, 

Just like tonight. 

It's always escaped my reason why I cannot ever learn, 

And make better decisions. 

Because these decisions make these endless nights and these endless nights, 

Make even more bad decisions. 

Sad songs can only say so much, 

And they flitteringly touch at the heart and they tell a story

Maybe even your story.

But they can never speak as loud as the pain inside. 

And that's when we languish, and ever disappear into the sadness inside. 

A deep dark place where hope goes to be ridiculed, 

And the best of us get beaten by our own careless woes. 

Demons.

Don't get too close, it's dark inside, it's where my demons hide, it's where my demons hide. 

It's occurred to me to wonder on occasion where we are and how we got here. I've never looked at myself from the outside before like I'm surveying a project and now that I do, I'm made to wonder. I am the product of my experiences, some good and some bad. I am who I've been conditioned to be in my years of growing up and now that I take a step back and try to look at the product as if I weren't living it, the results are startling. 

I don't know how I got this way. It's a surreal feeling, taking a look at yourself like you're looking at a project. I don't know what I've become and why. I've always been the combination of my experiences and for a long time, it's always been. But now I take a step back and I realise. I am selfish. And I am weak, and vulnerable, and afraid of that vulnerability. I've always been without really knowing why. Just forever in fear that care would hurt me and somehow unable to step back from it and not let it affect me. I've been denying myself who I really am all these years and the product of that is someone who is weak and vulnerable but is unable to show it freely and own it. But I am unable to disown it either and so I am an alcoholic on a binge. When it gets too much inside I go crazy a little bit and just break down. The feelings come pouring without stop and I harass the people I trust and care about and expect them to somehow fix this problem I have inside of me. And I place this burden on them and this expectation and even though I know it's wrong and I shouldn't be doing it but in the mad haze, I've never been able to stop. 

I marvel at how I got this way. I am a fascinating creature, a product of both denial and fear bourne from no valid source whatsoever. It's like I've bred insecurity and groomed myself all these years into becoming this neurotic personality always hiding and trying to conceal but never really succeeding completely. It is a feeling both indescribable and strange, looking at you from a different perspective and then coming to wonder at how things got this way. 

I can't say that I am pleased at what I see in myself. The levels of insecurity and fragility, bourne out of heartbreak and distrust. I was never a solid structure, I was always a house of cards. And I have learned over the years that I cannot judge because every time I did, I learned that I too am vulnerable to all those vices that come to you at your weakest. 

I've made decisions I never thought I ever would. I've condemned things with words only to swallow those words back up because I find myself doing the exact same thing. Maybe my approach was never right all along and this is learning journey to discover just what is. 

I don't know if I have the answers of the solutions but I need to try what I think is best right now. I need to shed those insecurities somehow and part of that process is maybe being comfortable enough to be who I am. But where do I start and HOW do I start? I don't know how to start acting different. How to just be vulnerable and show it and not to be so ashamed of it. I don't know how to just change like that and start being a completely different person. How do you just click your fingers just like that and turn everything around? 

I've learned that caring is a perilous journey and it will not always end to your benefit. There is no honour in caring but neither is there honour in not. There is no victory nor loss in this journey it just is. A perilous, rocky road filled with twists and turns and drops and rises that we must all take in our humanity. It just is what it is and the journey is what we make it out to be. Some scale the rises and take the drops as we go along, always accepting that it is part of being human and never second guessing it. Some sit back and ponder it long and hard and I guess I am the second part of this story. I think about it and I dissect it and I analyse it and try to find a way to come out of it victorious. But there is no victory and there is no loss. It is just a journey that we all take. 

Confessions.

I saw him, dancing about 11 months ago at the House of Smith. He was alone, and standing in front of the glass windows to the smoking area and just dancing. And he was good. My friends and I stood there and watched for a while and we wondered why he was alone. I was meant to find a one night stand that night, so I was meant to find a guy, take him home, shag him and never meet him again. But that wasn't my game; that was never my game and I was as disinterested in every man in the club as I had always been. So when my friends asked me if I had found one, I said him. I only wanted him. He was the only guy that piqued my interest somewhat the entire night and so I thought he would be as good as any. 

I finally got the guts to go talk to him the third time we ran into him that night and so I followed him out into the smoking area and struck up a conversation. He was nice, and he was friendly and I enjoyed that conversation more than I really expected to. I considered him a possibility but I stopped when I found out that he was a nurse. It just made a buzzer in my head go "eeek!" and I lost interest. So I declined his offer to send me home that night and after a halfhearted inquiry into whether he had social media which turned up the fact that he didn't, we went our separate ways and I never expected to see him again. My friends asked me why I didn't ask for his number and I told them that it was because I didn't want it. I was in a very good place, and I didn't want to have anything to do with men. 

Two weeks later we went back to the same club and this time, I had a jilted crush to get over. It was not looking to be a very good night in particular; we were tired out and resting in a corner by 2 am as we always do. And that's when I saw a rather unusual looking person sitting alone not 5 feet from us. But it was not until he got up and started dancing that I recognized him instantly. We started talking again and dancing slightly and when he came onto me I did not expect it. It was strange and rather unusual and I didn't know what to do. But I decided in the spirit of forgetting my old crush, why not just sleep with this guy. He seemed nice, he was friendly and definitely had way better conversations than any of the other drunken buffoons in the club. So I took him home with me. He was surprisingly nice and he talked to me for an hour after. Something I did not expect from a one night stand. But he left in the morning and I did not get any method of contacting him again. 

I don't know exactly when I started gaining interest in him. The shag was good and I liked it. But I didn't have any means of contacting him and so we went back to the same club the next week hoping to run into him there again. And lo and behold! Somehow we did. He made it clear from the first instant that he wasn't interested in a relationship and that we could be fuck buddies. And I said yes. It was silly of me but I did something that I'd never done before then. Entering into a casual sex agreement. It was against everything I used to believe in and everything I was used to doing and o marvel at the fact that I took that leap. 

Somewhere along the lines, I fell in love with him. I didn't realise that I had fallen in love with him. I knew that I liked him, and I knew I definitely at least wanted to be friends. But I don't know when, I fell in love with him. Or I realised I was in love with him. In retrospect, maybe I did fall in love with him the first time I met him. I fell in love with an amiable, companionable goof that loved to dance and was good at it. A person that I have not seen since then. But I am still in love with him and the deed is done. 

When he told me he fell for my friend after I'd introduced them, it broke my heart like nothing else. I could hear it shattering amidst my streaming tears. And when he told my other friend, in a drunken stupor and in an effort to get into her pants, that he was bored of me; that hurt me very deeply as well. And when he accused me of playing the victim and turning them against him, it bled from the repeated blows. Thus began the worst week I had in a long time. And I sat and watched as he admired her and showered interest upon her. Swooned at her words and hung onto every word. And I sat and watched as well when he left the club upset, on the last night of their trip here because he couldn't have her. And I consoled him and all the while wept silently inside in my sore, shattered heart. That memory has scarred me in a way I didn't expect it to. My self esteem was shattered. My heart was broken. And all I wanted was to just be able to walk away from it all and not be affected by the implications of that incident which kept haunting me and pushing my sense of self worth to the ground. But I still loved him dearly. And despite all of that, all I wanted was not to lose him. And so I stayed. Despite my shattered heart and my broken dreams, I stayed with him because I didn't want to lose him. 

I'd never completely gotten over it and it affected me so much, in more ways than I thought it would. And I was naive. I had hoped that if I stayed around long enough then maybe someday, eventually  he will fall in love with me too. I never told anyone about anything because I was too ashamed. I fell in love with him when I wasn't supposed to. I entered into this when an inkling in my heart knew that I wanted to be more than just fuck buddies. I knew but I ignored it. And I was so ashamed of being another one of an all too common statistic. So I told no one. It was the biggest mistake I had ever made and part of me regrets it dearly. But another part of me knew. I had always been a hopeless romantic, and if there was ever an illusion of a chance even, I would take it regardless of the risks. I never thought that there would ever come a day when I would be ashamed because of my love for someone. And all the time I fell deeper and deeper in love with him. We texted every day and he started coming over slightly more frequently than he used to. And I fell deeper in love. One day I realised that he was being nicer to me these days than he had ever been to me and I saw hope. Despite my best intentions I had hope. I loved him so much. Even the thought of living without him drove me to madness and despair which further fuelled my downward spiral in areas other than just love. Desperation has its way of driving and accelerating downfalls.

And then one day, after I had gotten my contraceptive implant he just suddenly relapsed into a version of his old self. He was saying things and speaking like he used to before that spell of time when he was suddenly nicer to me and that shocked and nauseated me. It disturbed me more than it otherwise would have and I was confused and disappointed and didn't know what was going on. And began the downward spiral of me. Now I don't know if the hormones had anything to do with it but I spiralled out of control into a deep and self loathing depression. And I could not hold it in any longer. I began asking him questions, just hoping desperately to hear him say that he did care for me and to rebut my worst fears about the situation. And he did at first but I didn't believe him. They say actions speak louder than words and in my mind, his actions spoke very loudly indeed. But he was patient and indulged me for a time.

Then one day, after a long and revealing message to him in which I opened up and told him things I have held close to me for a long time and I explained my need for his help, he suddenly turned around and said that I was expecting too much of him and that all he wanted from me was first and foremost and primarily, sex. He had made it clear from the start. And he didn't even want to be friends because for him to make friends requires him to make a lot of emotional investment. I felt like everything I perceived to have built was crumbling all around me. And I was reeling. My heart was swollen in its sorrow and in its disappointment and I was reeling with the hormones and the emotions and they drove me mad. I didn't know what had happened. How could I have been so wrong and so naive? And so hopeful? I couldn't believe how wrong I had been and if not then how spectacularly I had ruined whatever it is I may have built. I could feel the old cracks in my heart breaking open again and the pain and sorrow pouring out from the seams. I begged him to come talk to me because somehow even after all that, deep down inside I still desperately didn't want to lose him. Because I loved him that much. It was strange. It was disappointing. It was heartbreaking and it didn't make sense. 

I don't know where we are now and what is happening even though I want so desperately to know for sure what is going on. And more importantly, how will it pan out in the end. He has caused me so much hurt. And I fear that everything that has happened has cemented the ruin of anything I may have built if there was anything at all, which in the circumstances indicate that it was unlikely I ever did. And the hurt still lingers. I want to ask him those questions but now there is also the fear that I have gone too far and wrecked the delicate balance. That those questions might just make things worse or I won't get the answers I want due to the current situation. That I may have passed the point of no return. Is this the end? 

Questions to the Reverend.

"I just wanted to ask you something. Have you ever wanted to know something so badly? And you pray and you just wish that the Divine will give you an inclination or a sign as to what's going on. I've prayed and I've asked for signs so many times on what to do, where to go and what is going on; wishing that I had just some inclination to guide my path. And maybe you do get them and maybe you don't. I don't know. But that's just the thing. After a while, you realise that even if you did get a sign, you can't interpret it and most of the time, you can't even recognise it. You don't know what's a sign, if it's a sign and what's it's trying to tell you and then, you're back at square one again. Not knowing anything. So what if you really really really wanted to know? I know that maybe sometimes we can't know; and we just have to live by faith. And I know that the nature of faith is its inclination to be uncertain and unknown. But have you ever wanted to know something so badly; when you really needed the guidance? ... How do you deal with that?"

Snapshot 1.

Day is but a momentary thrill, a fleeting rush when the sun shines and the world springs to life. But when the sun goes down and world sleeps with it, the truths of the lives of the people around us live in ways they never can, blinded by the light of the day and the activity of the morn. 

The Question of Strength.

I never really thought that there would ever be a time when the thing I'm most ashamed of in my life is my love for someone. But now here we are and here I am; too afraid to tell anyone I've fallen in love. There would've been no point in talking about it anyway. But that still doesn't detract from the point that the reason I don't talk about it to anyone is because I'm too ashamed of it. 

I know I wasn't supposed to. And from the start I knew I would. And I decided to do it anyway. But I never was not stupid when it comes to these things. The hopeless romantic in me always hopes that things will work out and how can it if I never try? And if I never take the risk? I can't say I regret it. I made the only decision I could have back then. And maybe life's emotional ravages have left me a wreck, but I can't help thinking that it's for a purpose. 

I was naive and I was golden. And it's easy to be nice when you're happy and when you're surrounded by glow, people are attracted to you in a way and that makes you happier, feel more in place. And the cycle begins upwards and upwards. But the same can be said for the downward cycle. I might've used to be golden. But now I'm not anymore. I'm fighting for scraps beside so many vermin by the sides of a road called "emotions" and "love". It is known also by many other names like "acceptance" and "belonging" and many more. 

I don't know when I started to lose sight of who I am; or who I thought I was. All I know is that it happened sometime along the way and it just slipped quietly away, not announcing its intentions to go and never come back. And thus a child experiences its first instances of abandonment. Maybe it's like shedding the old skin and shrugging into the new. And then having a user manual argument over how to makes sense of the new gadget. My new skin has come with many new heartbreaks and where my old one was golden, the new seems more a slick shade of black. Like oil. But then again, oil is also known as liquid gold. So maybe there is hope for me yet. 

I now understand many things I never even know I didn't know. I know why she did that. I know what she felt now. And I know what I felt then. And what I feel now. And that's how I know what she might've been going through. It's a sad truth to bear and it's a bitter pill to swallow. For her then and for me now. I know now also many other things I have taken forgranted and sworn off in my stance borne out of ignorance and a lack of understanding. And a part of me is ashamed that I ever did judge. That I ever did form those opinions I am now seemingly forced to swallow in my new understanding. And another part of me feels fear. For I understand that as people we do judge. And no one is exempt. For it would be many bitter experiences indeed if I were to be forced to learn that hard way why my opinions were ignorant and needed to change. Another part of me wonders why I need to know even when many go through their lives never needing to learn they were ever wrong. And I have learned much where love and pain comes into the picture. Somewhere along the road I have come to see love now as not the Disney version I always thought existed and would be the case for me. I know now that love is acceptance and swallowing the bitter pill many many times in less than ideal situations. It is discovering just how far you are willing to go for a person while forsaking yourself in the process. It is learning just how much you want something and how you can never know where the line will be drawn until you come to that line. I have forsaken all my principles and done all that I thought I never would do in the name of love. I have thrown myself so far from the safe zone from which I vowed to court love from and now have been embittered by the storms that sweep the desolate plains of where I stand from. Because though I may seem to have lost my compass, part of me knows I may have no intentions of ever going back anyway. I can't go back. I live here now. The shelter would be alien and it would be a lie. I've crossed a line and now I belong here although I never thought I ever would and I hoped I never would. 

More than anything, it has been a journey of learning. And it never was a sweet journey. But maybe the nectar is to be extracted from somewhere I never expected and is not yet found. But I will find it I think. Sometimes I think that I am not strong. But sometimes I wonder if maybe I am strong. And definitely stronger than this. In less than conventional ways, maybe even not in the best way. But strength is strength. And it can be moulded into whatever shape or form the bearer may wish it to be. 

Thoughts of Quiet Contemplation

It seems that I really am my own worst enemy. I was sitting on the bus today, a quiet peaceful journey through some beautiful english countryside. It was quite pleasant, very pleasant indeed actually. And while I sat on this journey my mind went on a journey of its own as it is wont to do in these later days. I thought back to a lot of things, a lot of things that left me feeling heavy and sad and lonely. It is not uncertainty now that whoever I fall in love with will only serve to bring me misery. There is no joy for me in these endeavours and I am inclined to give up; even if not now then very soon. What else is new. 

And in my intimations I felt a heavy pull on my heart. Like that of a weight, pulling me ever downward. I've never been loved. What that was, that was not love. And it resulted in a complete separation and thereafter complete indifference as if it was never there. It was never love. Maybe a close approximation of it but nothing more.

I've been incredibly fortunate in my life and for that I am extremely grateful. I have not had to bear the brunt of some of the storms that can weather a person but for reasons not known, I am perpetually denied that which I belief will give life much meaning. I am an empty husk of a person. Having never felt appreciation from someone for who I am, it seems that now I am incapable of love as well. I doubt myself when I wonder if what I call love is really love. I am incapable of love but yet I am very prone to hurt. So someone who is incapable of giving love and yet wants unconditional love beyond anything else. How does that make sense? 

I don't know when my obsession with obtaining love began. It crept up on me one day and before I knew it, it seems I can't live without it. Every day is an endless wait in which I berate myself for being such a fool as to hope. For my heart is torn, as torn as it can be without further physical damage. I don't know when this burning need took over everything that is good in my life and proceeded to create ruin to everything that I am. 

I don't understand how I can go on this way. Surely I cannot.