Miss you now more than ever. I’ve only said “I love you” once in this life and you know how that story turned out. And it literally keeps me up at night (on nights like tonight), thinking that maybe someone will never look at me that way, with the stunning realization that I am the most precious and beautiful thing they have ever seen. No one will look at me and think, “you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.” It terrifies me to my core to think that I might never have someone to fall asleep with, to wake up with. That I might turn over at night to the cry of a baby and have no one to nudge and say “your turn.” That there won’t be someone there when life caves in on itself; no one to say, “I’ve got you” or “we’ll get through this together.” Because when the world is falling apart, no one should have to hold themselves.
Let’s be honest. At some point everyone you know will have moved on, and as much as they love you they’ll have their own lives, families and careers to attend to. No matter how much they care, there is only so many times you can call about the same thing before it becomes a burden on them too. So what’s left?
I want to be wanted, to be loved; for someone to mutually choose me. And, I’ll be honest, sometimes I revisit that memory in my head, not because of the guy but because I’m not sure I remember anymore what it feels like to feel secure, to feel loved, sought after and pursued. For someone to enthusiastically choose to share their heart, thoughts, and time with you.
And maybe it was all an illusion. Maybe every word he said was a lie. But it was a beautiful lie and at least I got to experience what it felt like to be desired. Not tolerated, not pitied. Chosen. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel this way again and that terrifies me because even now, a couple years later, the memory feels like dust, slipping, slipping and almost gone.
“Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.”* These words haunt me.
I try to trust that God knows what he’s doing. I really do. I try to tell myself when another person rejects me, decides that I’m not worth fighting for, that it was Him saving me from heartbreak down the road. Or that it was because he wasn’t ready. But it’s always so sudden and they never seen to have an answer to “What did I do wrong?” So it wasn’t something you did that’s wrong, but it’s something innate, which is so much worse. It’s not what you did that’s wrong, but who you are that’s wrong. Who you are is wrong for being fully loved.
This. This is the thing that scares me most because no one, No One, deserves to believe that about themselves. But I do. I don’t want to, but if history repeats itself that many times it’s not a coincidence, it’s a pattern. You are the common denominator, you are the problem, so you are wrong.
That is the cruelest fate of all. Having a deep and uninhibited desire for something you have no control over. That even if by some miracle you get, won’t last long because you’re wrong. That’s what bangs around my head at night. The rattling of the space between innate desire and innate wrongness. Like two opposing ends of a magnet being forced together, living in tension, dancing around one another until the tension breaks and the light goes out.
*Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
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