Some rollercoasters have a lot of twist and turns. Some have higher highs that are followed by those sudden drops that make you feel like you can't breath. Others have the crazy loops that turn you upside down and have you holding on with every bit of strength you have. Life is a rollercoaster.
My life has been one of the crazier ones. The kind of rollercoaster that has the rider hoping that the end is near but not quite ready to bail out by themselves. Occassionally, I even hope that one of the mechanics will inform me that there is systemic rust and there is nothing we can do except wait for the rollercoaster to completely shut itself down. Surprisingly, today is not one of those days.
For most of my life, I have tried pretending to be something I am not. What that something is has changed a few times to suit the people in my life. I thought that if I acted a certain way and said the right things, that someone would finally love me unconditionally. Unfortunately, I was not able to keep up the act long enough. Eventually the real me would slip out and the person I was with would stop loving me. When I got divorced 4 years ago, I decided that I was going to be 100% authentically me and people were either going to love me or they weren't.
10 months ago, I met the man I thought might just be "the one". He is kind, caring and considerate. He is smart, funny and supportive. He made me feel wanted. He made me feel loved. He made me feel like maybe being broken didn't make me unloveable. I was genuinely me and he'd continue to stay in my life anyway. I shared my darkest fears and my deepest thoughts with him. I thought I had finally discovered what a healthy, loving relationship was supposed to look like.
As we spent more time with each other, more of our quirks surfaced. I loved him a little more because of his. He loved me a little less because of mine. But I didn't know that then. I was blinded by the fact that I was in love with a good, kind man. And even though so many people had rejected me over the years, he hadn't. Yet.
My friends tell me that I placed him on a pedestal; that I couldn't see his flaws. They are wrong. I could see them. All of them. But he saw mine too. And isn't part of unconditional love embracing people's flaws. He was not perfect but he was perfect for me. I thought our strengths and weaknesses complimented each other. However, it turns out that he did not think I was perfect for him.
We tried to remain friends after the breakup. I am friends with almost all of my exes. For those that I am not friends with still, it is just because we lost touch over time. But I couldn't stay friends with this man. I couldn't see him or talk to him without my heart bursting with love again. Even toward the end, when he said some things that really hurt me, I couldn't stay mad at him because he was just being honest with me.
The other day I realized I can't be friends with him. When I told him, he said he understood. And in that moment, I was glad that we weren't face to face because I definitely needed a minute to gather myself before responding. I had such a visceral response to him saying that. After a moment, I calmly replied:
"I don't think you do but it doesn't really matter. Whether you understand or not, won't change how much I hate you for not being able to love me."
It was in that moment that I realized the reason why this break up hurt so much more than the rest. It was the first time in my adult life that someone I loved rejected me. The real me, not the fake front I had been putting on.
In my life, I have made a lot of hard choices and I have made a lot of mistakes. But I never really had regrets until now. I regret sharing my true self with him. I regret bearing my soul to him. I regret giving him the power to hurt me. He broke my heart in a way it hasn't been broken in a long time. And I let him to do. Honestly, I probably helped him do it. I am not sure how I will ever really let anyone into my life the way I let him in. I am not sure I trust my own judgement enough to know which people are worthy of that kind of love. But I am working to figure that out.
Every day is the scariest of rollercoaster rides when the person you love is the same person that you hate with every fiber of your being. But I have gotten used to the crazy ride I call my life. So each day I get up, check the dating apps, message a friend or two, get out of bed and start my day. And I will keep doing this for as long as I can.
I have a big heart. It is big enough to love a whole lot of people. Right now my heart is bleeding but it is also mending. I am genuinely afraid that if I wait too long, it will not only be completely healed, but the walls will be put back up, and no one will ever find there way in again. Instead, I choose to keep moving forward. To keep looking for someone that can love me the way that I love other people; unconditionally.
I gave him the power to hurt me. But I won't give him the power to keep me from finding someone who could love me the way he wasn't able to.
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