I Don’t Want To Change How Much I Care

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Sometimes I wish there was a heartbreak deep enough to change me. Like I finally met my match that would force me to be a little more protected and guarded. Someone who would hurt me so badly I’d learn to be a little more careful when it comes to matters of the heart.

I always swear when I’m holding back tears and hurt yet again, ‘next time I won’t let someone in so easily. I won’t give them my all.’

I’ll invest just a little bit and play that game you’re supposed to, caring but pretending you don’t. Seeing a message but not answering. Making them wonder how I feel.

If feelings were like a deck of cards and I’d have to keep a straight poker face, I’d lose every time. Even when I think I’m being coy and clever once my heart decides that’s it.

I don’t seem to change.

I still jump into relationships with both feet. I don’t dabble in even trying to talk to more than one person or have multiple relationships. That’s not who I am. I take chances hoping maybe these acts of being kind and fearless, even though I’m scared will be met with a different ending where it isn’t me picking up the pieces of a heart I gave away too quickly.

I’ve always believed in love stories and fairytales and happy endings. Maybe I’m naive to believe the things I’ve seen in movies could transpire into my real life. I’ve always looked at characters and relationships in T.V shows like that was something I wanted growing up. I’ve always listened a little too closely to lyrics, wondering about the person who wrote the song and who they wrote it for. I’ve always looked at couples in love, as I walk down the street never with envy or jealousy but overcome with joy for them that they found someone. Knowing very well my time will come.

Pain. Disappointment. Heartbreak. All things I wear a little too comfortable sometimes. But despite all that, I still believe in love and good relationships.

I still believe that we are all one person and one chance away from finding the person who makes us realize why it didn’t work out with someone.

So I hold my breath and I jump right into things and invest my entire heart into people who might not even deserve it. But maybe I can give them something to believe in too.
It seems people who are like myself always attract and find these relationships that attempt to suck the life out of us. Toxic people who need something and when you are someone who gives so easily, you try a little too hard. You look at them a little closer than most. You see something in them. But the cost is hurting yourself loving someone who can’t love you back.

But even those people I believe in. The ones who change because of heartbreak and the pain they’ve endured. The ones who have stories of the past that is so painful but it’s what makes them beautiful. And that moment they trust you enough to tell you. They too are one person and one good relationship away from being dragged out of the darkness they’ve allowed to hide themselves in.

And I’ll admit I’ve always tried to be that light for them.

That’s always where I get caught. Somewhere between what I want and what I know, I deserve, struggling to walk away and give up on people.

Because that’s the thing about it the people who wear their hearts on their sleeve and takes chances on people know real love.

I’ve learned about love from those who couldn’t love me back. I’ve learned about love from the chances I’ve taken. Loving them at their worst. From the tears, I’ve cried. From the moments I poured my heart out to people and told them exactly how I felt and what they meant to me.

Most have felt it. Some deep connection between us that will bind us long after we part ways in each other’s lives. People who wear their heart on their sleeve change the way others love showing them exactly how to do it.

If there are three words I say often it’s I love you. Not to hear it back just so the person knows.

For so long I’d repeat to ears I knew weren’t mute but if I kept trying, I’d hear it back. And honestly, that moment someone who is guarded and jaded, the ones who swore off love and relationships, that moment they say it back, I know I’ve won.

Someone has to believe in love and be the example other people can follow.

There are moments I wish I was different. Times when I wish I didn’t feel things so deeply. Where I didn’t hurt so hard and love so much. But I do.

And I’ve learned it’s both and a blessing and a curse to be like this. I learned that I don’t want to change. I don’t want to feel less even if I have moments where it hurts so much to be this person.

Because if I change then I know they’ve won. Every person who has hurt me. Every relationship that has ended. Every bad one that made me question everything. I don’t ever want one of those relationships to influence what I believe in and what I believe in most is love and good relationships even if my experience and knowledge comes from living through the complete opposite.

I believe in taking chances.

I believe in hopping on a plane for someone you love and putting it all on the line.

I believe in three words changing someone’s life.

I’m never going to be the person who is good at relationships or playing hard to get. But I am good at loving people and that’s enough. That’s enough to believe in and hope for and keep trying for until I get it right.