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.