The Thing About Unrequited Love

How do you deal with unrequited love?

Just thinking about it makes me literally weak. Yeah, that’s exactly how I am feeling these days. For years, I have been trying to shove this permanently in the deepest corner of my closet. But no matter what I do, I would always come to a point wherein the longing and the missing would just seem to suck the life out of me. It gets harder to breathe and it seems like your next words would be coming from your eyes and would roll down to your cheeks.

I am trying to fight it, but I lose every single time. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME!

Unrequited love is not like your typical butterfly-inducing kind of love. You smile for different reasons and you cry for different reasons. One thing I really hate about it is that you have no idea when it would start and you will never know if it will ever end. I’m starting to think that maybe only death or amnesia could end it. Seriously, how do you get over someone who was never yours?

I don’t even understand why it started and what I did to deserve to go through this hell. I have no idea. But I have heard somewhere that love is not a conscious decision. You don’t just teach your heart to love someone. It just happens unconsciously. And if you could ever teach your heart to love someone else, someone more deserving and someone who actually cares for you, I would have done that way before! Maybe I’m just too stubborn. No, maybe this is my karma for ignoring everyone who tries to win my attention. Maybe this is my punishment for turning down the guys before they could even ask me out on a date. I’m getting a taste of my own medicine, and it’s killing me somehow.

Most people would say that this is NOT TRUE LOVE because true love is a two-way street. It can’t be one-sided! People keep saying that this is just an illusion – that I can make the pain go away if I would just snap out of it. Well, it’s been years and I have tried ‘snapping out of it’ but I’m hopeless. Nothing works!

I still remember everything so clearly in my head, the days I spent with that one person whom I still want to spend most of my time with. They seem like yesterday, really. After everything I have been through, after wandering from one place to another, I still see his face in my mind’s eye. ALL THE TIME!

It feels like I’m in some kind of a spell and I can’t break free.

It’s humiliating and depressing. How could someone have so much power over you when they are thousands of miles away? How could you let one person ruin your day when he’s not even around? Well, it’s also inspiring and motivating in some ways. There are days when I would be happy simply because he is happy. I also tend to mirror his actions and thoughts, unconsciously.

The happiness and sadness that I feel are different from the ones I have felt before. Love with mutual understanding is so much different from unrequited love. There’s no give-and-take situation in here. You simply give it all and expect nothing in return. You don’t hold hands because you miss each other or want to be together even just for a few minutes. It would just be you, sitting alone with a million thoughts in your head, and a constant prayer that he is somehow safe wherever he may be.

You just care way too much, even if he doesn’t actually need you to care. You perfectly know that he would never care for you the same way and that’s totally fine with you. A single word from him could make your day, even if it was just a normal thing he’d also say to other people. There are no special endearments, but every word from him is like a taste of heaven. There are no special dates to remember, but you clearly remember what he looked like the first and the last time you saw him. Everything he does seems flawless in your eyes when in reality, he’s just another human with flaws and rough edges. He’s always an exception to your standards. You can never hate him; you have an unlimited amount of understanding just for him. Everywhere you go, there’s always something that reminds you of him. It’s amazing and annoying at the same time!

You’d think about a thousand ways to be right next to him, but you’d want to be invisible so you won’t annoy the hell out of him. You are way past jealousy; seeing him being happy with other girls has been your hellish haven. If it’s the only way you can see him smile, you’ll let him have his way. Even if it kills you inside, you will let him go~

All you can really do is spend most of your time missing him and trying to forget him simultaneously. Forget him, if it’s even possible.

Well, it could be if I try to fill my heart with self-love for now. Or maybe I can have a paradigm shift, a change of perspective. Maybe people really have to go through this at least once in a while. Maybe the challenge is learning how to convert an unrequited love to unconditional love. Maybe not everyone is lucky enough to go through this challenge. Maybe some who went through this have laid their swords down on the first few years. Was I strong enough to last and keep my sanity up until this point? Or was I too dumb to let it creep all over me after all these years? I can’t tell. All I know is that I am still alive and I still have a lot of things ahead of me. With or without him in my life, I will be fine. Maybe it’s about time I put myself on top of my priority list, not in a narcissistic way, but in a healthy self-love kind of way.

When all my lousy attempts to turn my back on it failed, I was left with no choice but to just write about it. I just wanted to let it all out hoping that maybe after I have written a piece of my mind, I might finally get over it soon.

Maybe one day this will just be a mere memory, a wonderful lesson that certainly helped me grow into the person I should become. I can’t wait for that day. I have read somewhere that love – healthy true love should be easy and effortless. It shouldn’t make you feel bad, at least not for a long time. If I could do unimaginable things for the wrong person, I can’t imagine the amount of time, effort, and love that I could give to the right person who deserves to see me smile and laugh from the heart.