a warm embrace

It seems like such a stupid thing to be triggered by - though I know my therapist would say that we can’t control our triggers - but breaking down into tears over a fictional couple starting on the path to a fictional relationship just seems a bit excessive.

We had crepes on our first date, even though I insisted for months that it hadn’t been a date - and as much as I wanted to think that was the reason that he learned how to make crepes, I can’t fully believe that it was ever really for me.

I know he cared about me, especially in the beginning… but I don’t believe that I was ever his first priority. When I had emergencies, I became his priority out of necessity - but I don’t believe that he thought about me constantly, or even often… the way that I thought about him.

Everything he did was for his son, and everything I did was for him.

The thoughts that consumed me were of ways to make their lives better. Things I could plan ahead to surprise them. Ways that I could make them happy.

Ways that I could love them better.

And yet, even after almost six years of burning the candle at both ends for them - he still looked at me like I was his narcissistic ex-wife. He still believed that there was hidden ill-will behind my every action. When all I ever wanted to do was love them… and be loved in return.

And as I sat there, bawling my eyes out over the injustice of this fictional relationship between fictional characters, I couldn’t help thinking how unfair it is. All of it.

Okay, not all of it - but a lot of it.

Why would God make me this way - with this tremendous capacity to love so wholly and deeply - and then put me in the path of these horrible men who only wanted to break me?

Because they did. In so many ways.

After everything I’ve given - after I have loved with absolutely all of me - I have still never been loved.

And even though my friends think it’s unrealistic, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will never be loved.

I’m too old - and my heart has been shattered too many times - to ever have the desire to play this game again.

I’ve always hated playing games…

Because somehow, I’m always the one who ends up losing the most.