last night i woke up from a dream. in it, i was doing something mundane when you suddenly showed up, quietly and unhurried like it was a place where you belonged. our exchange was brief, but i was left deeply affected.

afterwards, i woke up in tears. it was odd, because it's not as if i've never cried in dreams before. but the line between reality and dream was so blurred this time that after i woke up, i continued to cry. as i slowly came to, everything started to become clear--my sense of time, of orientation, of reality. it calmed me at first, but then scared me, realizing that you still have such a hold on me, in a way that even traverses consciousness.

in the quiet early dawn, i think of some of my favorite conversations with you. i remember how long it's been since i've heard your voice. suddenly the thought of no longer knowing you is so unbearable that part of me wants to return to sleep just to be in a place where we could speak again, even in a manner as cursory as it was in my dream. i just want it to be ordinary again, between you and i.

as the years go by, i realize more and more that the cost of loving you was far too high. and it is going to take a very, very long time for it to be repaid.

you would think that if you prepare yourself for the end; if you come to expect it, that your heart would be safe. that nothing could come as a shock.

but the pain is real.

day 22

dear ___________,

everything, everyone, every shred of rational thought in my head tells me not to love you. but i don't, honestly, know how to stop.

you're afraid you're not good enough, that you've messed up too badly, that you have something to hide. and you steal happiness from others to prove that you're exactly who they think you are. the only thing i can say in response is… you're absolutely right. you don't deserve their love. you don't deserve their forgiveness.

but this is about me. i am flawed in a way that stems from the same fact that i don't love myself. except that while you're reckless with others' hearts, i'm reckless with my own. and in my whole life, i have never stopped loving someone because of the things they have done. i love you not because of who you are, but because of who i am.

i didn't feel this way at first. i didn't think i could. what you did, it gave me reason to manage my expectations from the very beginning. i set up walls, boundaries--and i told everyone they were uncrossable. you did so many things to hurt me, to shock me, to test my limits. i was unfazed because i kept my heart in a tightly locked box.

or so i thought. the problem is, you were also kind. selfless and gentle. i opened myself up to you and you did the same. except while it's a daily occurrence for me, i knew how much it meant to you. you were sincerely wonderful, and the past began to feel incredibly distant. i began to wonder if you might love me after all, even though i had convinced myself that we were impossible.

i don't know when it happened, but one day something from your past came up and i came to the sudden realization that i did care. i cared about the awful things you did. something that hadn't bothered me previously now hurt me deeply and i couldn't understand why. i suppose all those things had been waiting at the door for the moment i let my guard down.

i believe that you love me, in the way that you know how. you say you want a second chance, but i don't think you really know what that means. i guess it doesn't matter because you know i'll give it to you. and a third and a fourth and many more, if you need it. not because i want to. but because i've given you my heart and i don't know how to get it back.

something is seriously wrong with me.

There were more unrequited crushes throughout my 20s and (hard to admit it) even into my 30s. The guy with a girlfriend, the work-a-holic, the angry poet. I was the best unrequited lover out there. I had become a pro at it. I told myself that love is painful and I must endure that pain. Even if that meant never betraying my true feelings, always keeping them to myself, loving cautiously from afar, keeping careful records in private places, or denying myself. Although I had real boyfriends, from time to time, the unrequited ones were better. They were perfect in my mind. They never hurt me, I only hurt myself and I liked it better that way.

When I fell into my final unrequited love affair, it felt like a dirty secret. I had always been able to compartmentalize my amorous inclinations, but things were different this time. I was way over writing about him in my journal or thinking about him only at bed time. I wanted him to, gasp, love me back. That’s when I cut off contact with him. He wanted to be friends, but I declined. I don’t need that kind of friend.

I realized that unrequited love was my favorite form of self-punishment, one that I had grown familiar with. When I finally felt I deserved to love and be loved in return, the childish habit had lost its dramatic cache. While it’s masochistic to long for something I think I’ll never have, it’s awfully safe. It’s scary to put myself in a situation where real love is possible with someone and in turn, real heartbreak, but I’ve decided the risk is worth it for the chance to let him love me back.