Love, and Other Disasters

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

― Lao Tzu

If you only love deeply and never get the strength of commitment and security in return, the fallout is ugly. I've been warned, read about it, prepared to avoid it, and yet can't deny it getting the best of me. It's true. I had expectations, despite firmly telling myself I wouldn't. Instead of loving him freely, I was a bird in his cage.

I know him really well. We have been together years now. But before he got on a plane to Cambodia, he told me it was over. No working it out, just done. No huge fight and regrettable backbiting comments, no dramatic throwing of objects and intolerable pet peeves that reached a boiling point. An hour before a big derby bout in a tournament, while I was in another State, he texted that it was over. We had discussed it briefly before I left on the trip... so it wasn't all via text (I don't want anyone to think he was that callused). He wants me to be free to find someone else who can give be a family. He wants me to move on.  After all, I'm 35 and my shriveling eggs are rattling around in my uterus like a gourd. The clock is loud. The clock wanted me to consider that possibility... with him. He isn't ready to make that decision, and may never be.. so he thought it best we end things. Unfortunately, I can't just turn off my feelings for him and pretend I'm "liberated." He told me today that instead of grieving, I should feel free.*scoff* I feel more trapped than ever! This is a serious blow to me, and as much as he may feel happy and relieved, I'm devastated. We were doing really well! He and I were communicating effectively. We were working on stuff. I met his mother. We had a great year full of adventures and food outings. He went through a lot of hard life events, and I was there for him through all of it. He opened up to me and I learned a ton about him this year. He's my best friend and my lover, and I don't know how to just turn around and switch into platonic friendship! I just don't know how to. I don't know how to let go of what I thought was a great future. I can't comprehend why he would want to do that. Then he told me he didn't want to only date one woman right now.

Night Terrors Are Foretelling

I had a terrible nightmare a few weeks back that involved him wanting me to clean his apartment, but also having to meet his new girlfriend in the process. He had said it was important we got along. She was just a baby at 19. Although I congratulate my unconscious mind for concocting that lovely anxiety dream, I see I had some foresight (and likely some hindsight). Ironically, younger women with their bewitching sexuality will always have power over men, no matter how long and hard they fight to dominate. Beauty tops a man's success every time, and is almost always their biggest weakness and downfall. I see that now. I cannot win any longer at that game, but he, chasing youth eternal, will be running to his death. It will not bring him peace, so I hope he can eventually stop and be with one person. I will NEVER be cool about him being with another woman. I cannot possibly be trusted to not kill her. I'm sure he could say the same about whomever I date. He wouldn't want to know, and so likewise, I cannot know I've been replaced. 

I would rather believe in the stereotypical fantasy that there is no one as worthy of him as I am and can take care of him as well as I have, and I choose to fully reject the reality that he has already moved on behind my back. It is much easier on my poor, delicate, borderline-psychotic brain to believe I'm the best thing he'll ever have than to accept that I'm not. I don't know how guys deal with things so pragmatically because I'm not a guy. Think me foolish for it... but I realize now that the survival mechanism to get over the gut-wrenching heartbreak of lost hopes and dreams is to believe in the fairytale. 

Women need hope in life to survive. Without it, they have no will to live.