BESTED BY FEAR

You meet someone. You like this someone. You want to have a relationship with this someone.
There's just one problem: This person doesn't want a relationship with you.
I'd guess that everyone has had that happen at least once in their lives. It could be a case of meeting the wrong person, of having feelings for someone who does not reciprocate. Or it could be a case of bad timing, of you being in a far different place romantically, spiritually, lovingly than the person you meet. You may want to have a serious relationship with them and they may simply want a good time.
I had always thought that if two people met at the right time, when they both were ready to love each other, when they both DID love each other, that nothing should stand in their way. That they could and should lean on each other, on the love they have and share, and face whatever life throws at them, hand-in-hand, shoulder to shoulder, together.
Let's face it, I'm a romantic idealist. Even after all of these years.
Don't get me wrong, while I am a sucker for happily-ever-after stories in movies and books, I know from personal experience that nothing goes that smoothly, that any relationship has its challenges and obstacles, its ups and its downs. But I always felt that when you faced those with someone you loved, things just went better. And I truly believe in what someone once told me, "when you love someone, a relationship isn't work. It's only work when you don't love someone."
So when I met someone and fell in love, I worried at first that I was in this alone, that she did not and could not feel as I did. When she told me that she felt as I did, the news struck me so hard I could not sleep that night. I just lay there, stunned that I had finally found her, that she had found me, that we had found each other.
As I lay there, I just assumed we would spend the rest of our lives together. I could not imagine anything stopping us. What could possibly prevent us from loving each other forever?
I simply forgot about "Romeo and Juliet," "Wuthering Heights" and the many other romantic tragedies I had read and seen through the years. Maybe because most, but not all, of them were tragic because one of them -- usually the male -- let his pride stand in the way of his love for her. Well, I thought, that is not a problem for me. I will never let my pride, or anything else, get in the way of loving her.
I never thought she might walk away from us, from our relationship.
But she did. Out of fear. Spurred by anxiety. Driven by paranoia. Overwhelmed by other emotions.
Love is no match for them. Faced with fear and all its friends, love cowers in the corner like a beaten dog, afraid of its own shadow.
Like so many lessons in life, I have learned the hard way that love does not conquer all. Love is not all it is cracked up to be in the movies, in literature. Two people can be in love and it still can fall apart. Because love is just one emotion. And it simply is no match for any of the others.

NO HEART TO FOLLOW

How many times has someone told you to "follow your heart?"
I never kept track, but somewhere along the line I followed that advice. I followed my heart. I let it lead me. I took my cues from it.
Now look where it has taken me. To emptiness. To sadness. To loneliness. To loss.
I was, of course, a fool. For while I held fast to the belief that love can strike at any time and at any age, I never once considered there might be a price for such a faith. Following my heart and keeping it open to love also meant leaving it open to hurt, to pain, to loss, to suffering, to rejection. For some reason I had assumed that all my previous losses, all the earlier hurts, all the younger rejections had granted me an immunity from that side of the loving equation. But that earlier damage only thickened the skin, only numbed the nerves, only created a few callouses that required far deeper and much greater damage be done before my heart felt the pain. That meant letting someone in much further and being more vulnerable than ever before. That's when it hurt, and it really hurt.
I not only had to swallow the bait, I had to take the hook inside too so that when she tore it out, it ripped out all of my insides with it, instead of just causing a small tear. Or two. Or three.
What she pulled out was not just my heart, but my faith, my hope, my love, my ability to love, my romance, my very being. I had lived for so long following my heart, she left me without an inner compass, without any guidance. I no longer know where to go next, where to turn, what to do because I no longer have a heart to follow. Or the heart to follow.
I am not paralyzed. I am not frozen. Those would be preferred because the paralyzed feel nothing and the frozen cannot experience pain. No, I am left alive enough to suffer on in an empty existence that offers nothing but the promise of more empty aching pain, years of agonizing solitude, decades of hopeless, barren horizons with nothing to look forward to in any direction.
Not that I am going anywhere now. Without my heart to lead me, I have absolutely nowhere to go.