September 7, 2021
I have very strong love feelings. For R*.
I trust they are love feelings. But. What good have love feelings done me in my life? Not much good.
Unrequited love. I know all about that. I write all about that. All the time.
He’s like Jeff. He desires me. He likes me. I intrigue him. I’m fun. I make him laugh. I soothe his sadness. I lift him up, tell him he’s wonderful. He is wonderful.
He’s quiet, introspective, thoughtful. I was going to say not like Jeff, but yes, like Jeff. Jeff was those things, is those things. I just didn’t see it, but I know it.
His priorities are straight on, his values are true, he’s wounded but open. That last — not like Jeff. Or maybe. Jeff was open to me. As open as he could be — with a wife. R* isn’t bound by that.
Why am I comparing R* to Jeff? Because it feels like it did with Jeff. And I admire him for the same reasons I admired Jeff.
So, I tell myself the same things I tell myself every time. Love does not demand its own way. Love is a gift, given with no expectation of any return. I don’t have a right to expect anything. Of anyone. I can love, but I don’t have a right to expect to be loved back. Because I never am. Or if I am, not in the way I need to be loved, and not by the right man.
I fucking give up. I cannot cannot go there again. I cannot be here again, in my mind. I cannot do this again.
So, I shun it, push it down. I put all my weight on it, I put all my effort into holding the giant beachball of emotion underwater. But I can’t.
In comes the pain. In comes the disappointment. In comes the sadness. In comes the self-hate. In comes all the bad. Love goes out and bad comes in. The return of love is BAD.
I’ve got to stop. I cannot keep doing this. I cannot ever do this again. I cannot invite pain in when it is sure to come.
I’m not supposed to not love. I’m not supposed to close down. That’s my entire message. STAY OPEN.
But I try and I try and I try. I really do try. I love often, but not often this strong uncontrollable love. That comes so infrequently. I love, and I love well. But this kind of love — I’m just out of my depth. I don’t have the tools, the resilience, to deal with the disappointment that always accompanies this big kind of love.
I cannot do this again. How do I stop? By lying to myself. By building a friendship, a strong wonderful powerful friendship. And lying to myself over and over, telling myself it’s enough. It is enough because it has to be enough. That’s what I say. Over and over. Why? Because I can’t control a man. What he gives me is enough because it has to be enough.
The choice is consistent for me: let myself love and be destroyed. Or try not to love and fail at that miserably. Either way, I’m destroyed.
I was made for love. Big love. This kind of Big Love. Like I have for Jeff.
I cannot do this again.
"We accept the love we think we deserve."
-Mr. Anderson, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
