@18prayershater: I’ve been trying to find the right words for this post recently but I’ve kinda been struggling to do so. There’s no finite point for where I can begin, nor for where I can end. So I guess there won't really be one. I’ve been searching for both myself and for them. Trying to understand the emotions I’m feeling while also searching for what I want. Honestly, I find myself searching for them more than I have been searching for myself. I look for them wherever I go if I’m being honest; walking amongst strangers, taking the CTA, concerts, even in places I know I would never see them at. Everywhere I go I find myself subconsciously looking for them, but I never know what I’d do if I ever saw them again. Would I go up to them and say “Hey?” Would I just smile and wave if our eyes met, or would I admire them from afar, never taking the chance to mend what we had? I never truly confronted what I’ve been searching for, what I’ve been feeling over the past year and I realized that I had just been avoiding it. Avoiding the sorrow, the guilt, the pain. I always felt it there but always tended to push it away. For a while now I instead have been trying to confront it, trying to internalize what I’ve been feeling and what I want, though I’m still unsure of what it is that I’m feeling, or sometimes what I want. I think what I’m feeling and what I’m wanting is love. To be able to extend the love I have inside me waiting to be free and to be able to receive and feel that same love. But when I reach for this feeling and wanting inside me, I end up crumbling instead. The thought of loving someone other than them sends a rush of emotions that flood me to a point where I’m scared. Scared that maybe I’ll learn that the love I feel for them isn’t as deep as I thought it was, scared that my perception of love isn’t what I’d thought it was, or scared that maybe I really won’t love another as I love them. Even when I feel the initial spark of love for someone new in my life, I get scared. Scared of the idea of someone new touching me the way they first did and when I come to this realization as I have many times previously, I realize that I have no desire for someone else touching me in the manner that they did. I realize that I'd only be allotting my new lover a part of me and never the entirety of my soul, for my soul belongs to them, both willingly and unwillingly. And in response to all the emotions I’ve been feeling, I decided to hide from them, never allowing those emotions to rise and make me feel the way they had been making me feel. But in doing so I lost a part of me. I lost the ability to find pleasure in what I used to love, and I lost the ability to reciprocate my emotions for not only those around me, but myself as well. I prevented myself from feeling those emotions, because when I feel them, I feel everything around me in a greater magnitude. But those emotions are me; the sorrow, the guilt, the pain, and the suffering that I even brought to myself. Those emotions are all a part of me. But there's beauty in being able to experience both the negative, the positive, and the in-between of all the emotions that my time with them has brought me. To know that I can experience such a depth of emotions, is the beauty of it. And to be able to feel the beauty of those emotions is something I would never give away. For in letting myself feel those emotions and experiences, I let myself be myself.

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2026-09-20 19:01:41

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