I Know It Hurts Now, But You Will Get Over Them

They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but right now I’m so hurt I feel like dying.

They say that if it didn’t open it is because it wasn’t your door, but I don’t understand how something that felt so great wasn’t meant to be.

They say that time heals everything, and it might be true, but now every second feels like an agonizing eternity.

I remember the first time I saw him. You can disfavor modern dating all you want, but if it wasn’t for it, I would have never looked into those deeply hypnotizing blue eyes. When he finally asked to kiss me, I had already been fantasizing about it for at least an hour, and he still surpassed all expectations. After that first date I thought he wouldn’t text me, or I guess I was just trying to protect myself, but he did. He remembered I had an exam and asked how it went, he also wanted to see me again, soon, and I guess things went fast from there.

Now I feel deceived, stupid for falling into his game, for believing in the empty promises he created, for letting him see my vulnerability.

It’s a human trait to become addicted to things that hurt us, and I know why I did it. I loved the adrenaline kick of being with him, the drinking, the smoking, the raw public displaces of affection, the wild sensation of being alive, how special I felt when he opened up to me. When I was with him I felt like I finally understood all the quotes about living your life to the fullest, all the poems Bukowski composed about wild experiences with wild people. All the paragraphs Hemingway wrote about passionate love. However, bubbles always end up bursting, and this one led to an especially messy ending.
After months, I decided to be true to myself and feelings and eventually demanded what my heart wanted, “NO MORE HALF MEASURES” I told myself, and learnt that everything has a price.

When he rejected me, I told him that this was goodbye. I wanted him to suffer the consequences of his decisions. I wanted him to know how it feels not to get what you want, that this sort of relationship was not going to continue, not even as a friendship, but holding grudges only hurt those that hold them
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I tell myself that he lost someone who loved him, who cared about him, someone who was willing to take all the risks necessary to make it work and I just lost someone that didn’t love me enough to commit. But that doesn’t help, it still hurts, and realizing that you are not loved in return as much as you expected can throw you to the ground.

But I am not afraid. I am proud of myself, and you should be too, because opening up to another human being takes courage; because showing vulnerability in this shallow world is an act of strong rebellion; because loving someone is not for the faint of heart.

If you want to live your life to the fullest you need to take risks, and the ups and downs are way better than just a safe monotony that will destroy you by experience-starvation. So forgive yourself and move on, because you get what you settle for and you can do so much better.

I know that right now it hurts, believe me, but like the philosopher Alan Watts said, we must be willing to suffer from our pleasures. If we only get good experiences, not only we would never learn anything, but we wouldn’t appreciate them anyway. Don’t run away from the pain, it is a lesson, it is an experience.

The message here is this one: do not close yourself up now, don’t be afraid to love again, to continue trying again and again. I can’t promise that the next person will treat you right, and accepting that the person you loved didn’t love you enough to take risks is hard, but these experiences will teach you to understand other people, to appreciate more the people that truly love you. Above all, they will teach you how to love yourself, and that is no temporary partner but a life one, one worth fighting for.

Like Charles Bukowski said “drink from the well of yourself and begin again”, you can do it.