I grew up knowing that love is a beautiful thing, a dream, as evidenced by the storybook The End Game. I have been thinking about that thought process and how much it has cost me. There are people I love because I had to. By the standards I grew up learning, I had no choice, and it turns out I had choices. Part of my adulting has come with the lesson that it is okay to love someone so intensely and stop loving them after a while. It is okay to look at someone, and your whole world revolves around them. Think about how lucky you are to experience the whole of them. It is okay that, after a while, you cannot look at them without questioning your taste in human beings.
Funny, if you ask me, how fast things change right before our eyes. There is a consuming feeling that comes with loving someone without telling them. The draining energy that comes with fighting how you feel and trying to ignore how much a person or something makes you feel. For women, it is worse because we are taught not to make the first move; we are to wait for a man to say something. Trust me when I say I have been there, loving someone who did not know. It took everything from me. I fell asleep most nights with a lump in my throat.
I love this person so much that the feeling stays no matter how much I try to ignore it. I would write about my thoughts and fantasize about them so much that it would fill a script for a series. Then one day, as I was talking to him, I could tell he was not okay. I could not ask because I did not think it was appropriate given the circumstances. So, I was up at one a.m. begging God to fix what was wrong with him so I could sleep. The one thing about love is caring; you will care whether you want to or not. Unless it is love, you will not escape the consuming need to know if the person is okay.
After so many months of fighting, I gave up and came to terms with my reality. I accepted that I loved every feeling I had. My fears that he did not feel the same way were overcome by reality. It did not matter as much as I wanted it to.
The truth is, I was fighting with thoughts that I might not feel how I feel. Meanwhile, I was struggling with suppressing how I felt. The only person hurt as a result was me. So, I chose to express my feelings and enjoy the joy of loving him.
I love him, I care about him so much, and I am content. Would I want more? Yes, I would love more, but I will take what I have right now. Stating this for the record, it got easier and more enjoyable once I made peace with it. It’s okay to express my feelings without expecting a return of the same.
I have started to appreciate my emotions, my feelings, and my needs without expecting anything in return. Through this journey, I have concluded that we fight so much with our emotions that they become so heavy. Too much of a burden to carry, and as a result, we are always hurting.
Be yourself through every emotion, and watch how fast your reality changes.
Maybe it’s just like a crush, once you get a chance with them, the consuming desire fades. Then you realize they aren’t even all that attractive.
