This Is Me Jumping In And Choosing To Love You

I’ve been stuck on you since the day I met you. There’s something so mesmerizing about you that keeps me holding on. There’s not just one thing about you that makes you mesmerizing – it’s all of you. The way your smile can capture a whole room, and your laugh can tickle the souls of everyone in the vicinity. It’s the way you make everything look so effortless and easy.

I never gave you, or us, the real chance you and we deserved. Our relationship never even left the ground before I threw open the storm gates and fled. I was afraid and insecure and did the only thing my instincts told me to do – run. But you didn’t deserve that. You didn’t deserve a runner; you deserved someone who’d stay. Who’d stay when the waves became rough, and the sky dark. Someone who wouldn’t back down, but rather stand tall by your side when times became tough.

But you never did let go of the possibility of us.

You held on long after I was already gone, swept away on new adventures with new people, without you.

Assuming wrongfully that you had moved on too, as I had. And maybe you had actually moved on, just never fully let go.

A part of me, whether I admit it or not, clutched onto a piece of you, a piece of us. Not in a desperate way, but in a subconscious, yearning way that never really broke the surface. I suppressed the thought of us and packed it away neatly into a box which I refused to open, refused to face. That metaphorical box was full of memories and emotions that were strong and powerful, and overtook me, even at my best. They over took my ability to leave you in my past, where I thought you wanted to be after I hurt you when I fled.

Now, years later, here you are, standing in front of me, confessing your feelings that never dissipated, and asking me to give our relationship another chance, a chance that I never expected I would be granted. When I fled all those years ago, I didn’t give you an option, I didn’t give you the say you deserved, I simply fled and you were left empty to deal with the repercussions of my actions, with little explanation.

I was afraid to face reality, a reality that included the prospect of a relationship with you, with a human being who seemed too perfect to be real. And maybe that’s what scared me. I was caught off guard with how well we clicked, better than I had ever with anyone else. Maybe it scared me how a single person could always seem to know exactly what to say and when to say it, how they understood me on a level that no one else did. I ran because I was scared to be engulfed in a reality, a reality known as a relationship, where nothing is ever certain, the future is unknown, emotions lie unprotected, lives become enveloped in one another’s, and where one becomes so dependent on another.

I want to give our relationship another chance, but I’m hesitating, only because I’m afraid.

Afraid of what will happen if I take that leap of faith into your arms. Afraid to ruin a chance that I never thought I’d get again, afraid to put my heart into your hands, to take that timid first step into your world.

I can already feel myself wanting to run in the opposite direction, away from you, away from the feeling of vulnerability, of helplessness or codependence. But I stop myself from running this time. This time will be different. I’m done hurting you. I finally realize and understand that you’re worth staying for. You never gave up on me, on us, even when I did. Because you believed in us, when I didn’t. And now, it’s time for me to believe in the magic of our love, the way you did and still do.

There’s never a guarantee that your heart won’t get crushed, your trust won’t be violated or that you won’t get letdown. But I believe that when you do find someone worth taking that leap of faith for, you have to place trust in a world of uncertainty, because with uncertainty comes possibilities. Don’t run; stay, because you’re worth it. There’s never a guarantee that you won’t get hurt, but sometimes you’ll stumble across someone who’s worth getting hurt for.