True Faith- Unrequited Love

I think I have woken up to an extraordinary possibility.
Yet one I also find strangely comforting.

I'm reasonably certain I've never been in love in my life.

The logic of that statement is certain.

I always thought I loved Joanna, and in a way I did. She was the statue on the pedestal everyone had to live up to.
But she couldn't have been The One.

Because lurking deep within that nineteen year old mind of mine, was the ghost of a condition.
That she loved back.
And the deep hurt and pain having that apparently taken away caused.

Six months of joy.
Then she just comes back from her sisters graduation.
She walks calmly into your room. You get up to kiss her.
And she puts her hands out and says 'No. Listen, I've got something to say.'

Something is wrong. You sit back down.
She says 'I don't think we should be together any more. I'd like us to end it.'

You: Why? I don't understand.
Her: Just. Don't ask. It's nothing you've done.
You: Is that it? Six months? And that's it? Just like that?
Her: Don't be like this. I want us to still be friends though.

And you see, that's where I showed I didn't get it. Unconditional Love. I gave the answer of a conditional lover 'How we can we just be friends? I love you.'

I drank two bottles of Jamesons that night. I had to be restrained by my friends from stripping off and running in to the sea at Aberystwyth harbour.

I loved her and I have never loved another woman since. Not like that.

I tried to play the game the other way. Let them love you, but never give yourself totally to them. Keep something back.
And when they've clawed and clawed to fight their way in, I've fought them off like a rabbit being savaged like a ferret.

And over and over again, that pained remonstrance; 'Why can't you love me like I love you?'

I set my conditions, and demanded unconditional love.

But who gets the raw end of the deal?
The unrequited or the unrequiter?

The unrequiter, I think.

To have someone love you, when you cannot give them what they want, is a burden. A true burden.

Of course, there is a deeper point. In a sense, looking back on the people who DID love me- in that way- it was never enough. Because it was conditional, conditional of me actually being able to reciprocate, and in the sense that was demanded, that was never going to happen. Because it had always been entered into as a bargain, without trust.
Two sides offering conditional love, in differing ways, and expecting unconditional.

And wondering where it all went wrong.
The story of my life.



The other mistake I've always made- probably because I've never really been in love, is assuming that you can't really know if you're in love. It's an emotion, therefore it's unreliable. It could change in an hour. Because that's always been true. I've loved them in the starry eyed moments when they've said 'Yes, you're right about that', but when they've started to nag, those feelings disappear with the wind.

Because I've always responded. I've only 'fallen' for those already showing interest. My pursuits have been half hearted to say the last.

So I never bothered to stop to ask 'Do you love this person?' only 'Are they falling in love with you?'

And the only way you can ACTUALLY know whether you're in love with someone is whether you love them, regardless of whether they love you.

I think if you genuinely DID fall in love, you'd know straight away.

And now I come to the interesting conclusion. The one that to me raises so much possibility of hope.

I think, if I were to meet 'The One' I WOULD, for the first time in my life KNOW they were 'The One'.
I would know that here was the only woman I could ever want, and having met her just once, I'd never look at another woman again. I'd know, that having met her just once, that sleeping with any other woman, would feel wrong, that all any other woman could do in a moment of tenderness, would be remind you that they weren't her.

But.

At the same time, would be a realisation that she was not for you. A realisation, that yes, she was the only woman who could truly make you happy, but that you could never make her happy, and to try, to take the woman that you loved and try force her to dance your tune, to expect her to give her life to you, would be to waste the most beautiful life you had come across.

In that instant of falling in Love, you would already be letting her go.

Because you would want her to have the life she deserves.
And you can't give her that.

But because it would be unconditional, no pain would attach itself to just being friends. You'd quite happily see her in the arms of another man, as long as he truly made her happy. If he made her unhappy, then no, but if he gave her the happiness you couldn't, that WOULD make you happy, in a way YOU having her, never could.

You'd die for her, but you'd never let her waste herself on you.

And you'd be freed. Freed from searching.

Free from wasting your time on the fruitless search for what can never really be.

And then maybe, you could finally get on with leading a constructive life.

Maybe living your life in unrequited but unconditional Love, really is the truest strength you can have. Of course it is- isn't that what True Faith is?

Just a thought.