The Chronicles of a Millennial Navigating Unrequited Love

I love you.

There I said it, I finally let it out.

It dawned on me and I typed a message that’ll never get delivered because I put my phone on flight mode before it could get sent. Someone said somethings are better left unsaid and it would not make any difference if you do because what must you do with that information? How is it relevant to you? What does it change? Nothing. I spent the past couple of weeks convincing myself that I had to send it and then deciding against it. It’s still in my messages but I’ll never click send, why am I keeping it around?

I always thought that when you loved someone they would love you back but no that isn’t the case. Takes me back to a phone call I had some years back, the person over the phone said I love you and then there was silence and I said thank you and I quickly hang up because what must have I said? I love you too when I didn’t mean it? I can imagine the other person, heart racing because they’ve finally gathered the courage to tell me they love me and then there’s that possibility and hope that I do too but I never said it back. I can’t imagine the disappointment they felt when I didn’t say it back but the relief of having said it. A year before that the roles were reserved and I said it first and they thankfully said it back.

So I’ve been thinking about it and I think I love you.

Now unrequited love is the pits (a colloquial term that millennials use to describe something undesirable). It’s the worst because I can’t think of anything else that hurts as much, I can stand physical pain but emotional scars run deep. Physical scars heal, physical pain is nothing compared to the loss of a loved one or heartbreak.

I often complain about not receiving love letters but I never actually written one for someone. I can’t promise you perfect love. I can’t love you the way you want to be loved, you’d probably want a love like your first love because nothing can compare to that right? But I can promise you tiny love letters(in the form of text messages of course). Phone calls late at night because my anxiety won’t let me rest and listening to your voice will calm me and I can finally fall asleep. Random thoughts about those thoughts I have but can’t tell anyone but you. I can promise you all of that and best of all my imperfect love. Would things have turned out differently if I wrote you a love letter? Was your face going to light up and heart feel warm while you read it? I will never know because I will never write it and you’ll never receive it and I can do is reminisce.

I either love you a whole lot or not at all. I have no in-between and it must get suffocating. I’ll go from ignoring you and taking forever to text you back to wanting to talk to you all the time. Overwhelming? I think not. If you think my love is too much then leave me alone. Stop trying to change me to best suit your needs. Don’t try and mold me into the idea of what you think a woman should be.

So back to unrequited and feigning over someone that won’t even glance at you and they only time you come into their vision is when you walk past them. I’d be lying if I told you that things get better, that feelings fade overnight or that you’ll cry and curse God for causing you so much pain and you’ll wake up feeling better. That the moment you said I’m done is the time that all those feelings you’ll have will dissipate and you’ll finally feel peace.

Why is the pain so profound? It’s starting to make me think that that it’s only hurting this much because what I thought was just like is active. It makes more sense, it makes me understand that all this hurt was because I love you and you left. I don’t know when it’ll ache less when I’ll look at your picture and not feel my heart flutter. Not hear your laughter ring in my ears, not forget your scent when you moved closer to me when we cuddled. I don’t want my perception of you to change. Yes, you hurt me but I don’t want to forget the feeling of all my troubles going away when I touched your face and you smiled. I don’t want to forget the sound of me giggling because of something you said, I hate it when I giggle because I think I sound silly. I don’t want all of these feelings to turn to hate and that’s what’ll make me feel less of what I feel for you. I want the same idea as you that I’ve almost always had. The one I had when you came over and I didn’t want you to leave because in that instant I thought, “Shit! I like this guy.” There’s a thin line between love and hate and I don’t want to tip over because I don’t want to forget that you’re a good person in spite of all of this.

I love you, I do and it’d be great if you loved me back. Because I have all this love to give and share. I can’t love myself, I’ve always had issues with that but I’ve never had problems with giving my love to others. I’m a mere reflection of the love I have to show and give to others. If I showed myself the love I show others than I would be in a better place and I would be so much happier. I wish I wrote about all of this before the pain came, the pain of loving someone that doesn’t love you back, the constant longing for your presence. Your aura shining brightly and dimming my dark one. But if I did I don’t think I’d be able to write all of this because I feel that part of this is coming from pain and with pain comes my desire to write.

I woke up one day and I was curled in a ball on one side of my bed. The other side had enough space for one person and I’ve never felt so lonely. Like my subconscious knew that another human being must be filling that spot. And I stayed in bed longer than I should have to try to process what I was feeling.

In the manner of the age-old RomComs, you’d show up at my door after running through the rain because it dawned upon you that you love me and you had to tell me so urgently or you’d shout my name from outside my window and play a song(anything really or a love ballad from the 80’s preferably Faithfully by Journey) from a boom box held high over your head. But this isn’t the early 2000’s anymore and those actions aren’t time appropriate. Maybe you’d post that you love me on your status or go live and tell the world. But this isn’t a movie and you’re not a hopeless romantic like me and lastly, you won’t love me and you never will. Everything would get back to normal and images of us laughing or talking would play with a love song playing in the background. The theme song to our love and the credits would roll and we would live happily ever after. But all I have left are these sad songs, the theme songs to our failed love story and I don’t think I’ll be able to listen to James Vincent McMorrow the same.

It’s time I let you go because I’m hurting myself more than anything. Holding onto that tiny glimmer of hope that you’ll love me back. Holding onto you is like admiring the beauty of a rose even though the thorns prick me and make me bleed. That you’ll go through your day with the thought of me at the back of your mind is the reality I have to accept. That you’ll go to sleep thinking about me and I’ll haunt your dreams like you haunt mine.

I’m making peace with the fact that you loving someone doesn’t mean they’ll love you back. Me loving someone and them not loving me back must not be a reflection of my self-worth. It shouldn’t make me feel like I’m less than I already am. We’re just not right for each other and there’s nothing I can do about it.