The hardest thing about dating him was that he was moving.
Womp, womp.
But I convinced myself it was all fine. We’d date ’til he graduated. I’d move to New York City. We’d get married. Oh and then maybe get a corgi, live in a gorgeous apartment where we could see the sunrise in the morning with our iced coffees and run around drunk through Hell’s Kitchen on the weekends.
It was a nice fantasy. It really was. And then he sat me down on some bench, looked straight into my eyes and — honestly he could’ve stabbed me with a knife and it would’ve felt better.
“I don’t think this is what you think it is”.
I’m not sure why I’m this way, honestly. But every decision I make feels like the end of the world. It feels like a full commitment for the next 10 years of my life. I literally can’t jump into anything without feeling like my entire being must. center. around. that. entire. thing. or. else. i. will. die.
Love is very much the same. It’s hard to take anything one step at a time. Hard not to give your hopes up. Hard to remember that there is a world that exists outside of your fairytale land.
In a lot of ways, it’s deeply unfair.
Unfair to them because, hello, they’re entitled to live their own life. People have their own interests and aren’t bound to the expectations we have built up in our own noggins.
Unfair to us too because, hello again, we’re not actually enjoying a person’s company when we’re constantly living in a futuristic dreamland.
The future I imagine never becomes reality. Does this mean I’m failing at manifesting what I want? I don’t think so. It just means that I’m stumbling my way through the wrong paths while I try to find the right one.
Love, I guess like the rest of the crap in my life, seems to work a whole lot better when I’m not thinking, but when I’m actually getting in there and experiencing it. Being present. Listening. Taking it all a few baby steps at a time.
I’m not sure anyone has explained it like that to me before. And I woke up still frustrated that I didn’t run away with the guy who looked like Jack Antonoff at the bar back in February. So let’s just put it this way.
I’m working on it too.
For better or for worse.
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Originally Published on P.S. I Love You
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Photo Credit: Pixabay