The longer this goes on, and the closer it all comes to the end, the more I can see that I’m losing myself, and I’m killing myself by refusing to care about what happens to every shredded piece of my life. For the first time, in a long time, as I stare out my window into the rain, I have to ask myself what the point is. One by one, I’m running out of reasons to get up each morning, as I realize how unrealistic all of my hopes and aspirations were, and how lonely I’ll be when all those I’ve ever cared about inevitably go their separate ways without ever knowing how I feel.
Storm clouds drift in unnoticed, and the sky darkens.
Everyone feels this way sometimes, I tell myself. Everyone who has led a life worth living has experienced pain; everyone with any feeling left inside, and whose life is not perfect, has gone through the same thing. But at the same time, I acknowledge the bitter truth, and all that I had built up inside of me to hold myself together begins to collapse. Tears flow from my eyes, and a single sob escapes from my lungs, but no more. I can’t feel sorry for myself; I’m only getting what I deserve. So predictably and undeniably brought to my knees by nothing other than love, and lack of it, I should have seen it coming.
She was my reason for waking up each day… my last one, actually. Had it not been for her kindness, and her inexplicable inability to see that I was not worth dealing with, I would have given up long ago, and would not have bothered to go through the monotony of each day, looking forward to the five minute gap in the onslaught of one failure and disappointment after another, during which I might be able to talk to her. I thought I might actually get a little bit closer, day by day, until the day when I could tell her how I really felt without putting too much pressure on the fragile relationship of friendly conversations that I had struggled not to destroy for so long.
But the situation was impossible, as it often is, and I had to accept that there was no way to go any farther… that it would never work. I had wasted far too much time, during the previous year, when I had barely spoken to her at all. Ever since, there had been a creeping fear in my heart that she thought I hated her, and still does, when in fact I was so stricken by her beauty, both inside and out, that I had no idea how to talk to her, and still don’t. She starts every conversation. She always knows what to say, and all I can do is play along in the most sincere way I know how, and even though I know that this is exactly why it would never work, I still convinced myself then that the next day, always the next day, I would be able to move an inch closer.
She could never have known how I felt – not only how much I thought I loved her, but how much difference she had made in my life by simply choosing to be my friend. Every time she spoke to me, she broke away a piece of the shell around me that kept everyone else out. Every time I said my name, every single sorrow literally vanished from my soul. I wanted to hold her, kiss her, put my arms around her, but I didn’t need to be told how inappropriate that would have been. Some are outgoing enough to get away with it. I would have scared her away. I felt like I had to pretend not to care. My entire existence was a lie.