Can you love someone and be too far gone?
This is a question that has been one my mind in one version or another for a little too long now. How do you really know that something, or more specifically, something with that someone, is truly done? Can you ever be truly done when you still love them? Is love enough- can it be enough? But what happens if only one of you is in love?
I have been in this limbo for about a year and a half now- loving someone with every beat of my heart and missing him with every breath in my lungs. I have preyed, bargained and begged for love and now I am ready to pray, bargain and beg for it to have never happened.
I read a quote once that said that to love means to give someone the power to destroy you and trust that they won't- but he did. He came into my life, at a time when I didn't think myself capable of loving, and showed me a version of myself I didn't even know existed.
I had always been with people I want, never anyone I need, because as an independent woman, living on her own and making career in a male dominated job, I didn't need anything from anyone, I was entirely self-sufficient. To me to need someone was an unnecessary vulnerability I was not willing to expose myself to.
So for years I didn't. I enjoyed friendship and relationships, but I never allowed myself to need anyone. I never dared to rely on anyone but myself. This may sound sad, but it was practical, logical and it made sense to me. I justified it by saying that needing someone created unhealthy co-dependency and you should be with someone because you want them, not need them- and that worked for me- for years. It protected not only my heart, but my soul and sanity.
And then he came- he didn't want to be wanted- he demanded to be needed! -And he got his wish. After 7 short months of what I can only describe as the best and worst of my life- I needed him! Not for money or stability, but for the simple act of existing, breathing, moving. He became the air in my lungs, the blood in my veins, the essence of my soul. He became a part of me I hadn't even known I was missing until I found it/him.
I don't think I will ever be able to recall the day I fell in love with him. One day he was a handsome stranger I had great chemistry with and the next he was the axis of my world. He was my biggest supporter, my safest place- my home.
My mom had told me when I was younger that home isn't a place, its a person, and I didn't believe her until I was in his arms one day and I knew that I could be in the middle of a war zone and this man's embrace would be my armour. He made the worries fade away, the insecurities crumble into nothing, he made be feel things so intense I had thought they only existed in fairytales. It was then I understood what my mom had meant when she's said that on her worst day she's be okay as long as she got to come home to my dad, because when he was there, she was safe. I had never understood her before- I never really even wanted to- I never wanted to need someone in that way; because what if they die, what if they leave, what if ...
Now I don't know if my scepticism had triggered it, but my worst fear became my reality- because he did leave. He left without a second thought and a backwards glance. He left as quickly as he came and he left nothing but ruined pieces of my heart and sanity behind.
No- he didn't just leave- he destroyed every good moment we had shared first, then he stomped in the remains of my broken trust for good measure and then he left.
I cried for months - pain so visceral I didn't think I would make it through. Days bleeding into nights, bleedings into weeks, months, now years- yet the gaping hole inside of me remains wide open and sore. Plagued by memories even in my dreams, haunted by the ghosts of his smile, his touch, his voice... I couldn't escape him, because even though he was gone, he still lives inside of me. He asked me to need him and unfortunately, I do- I still do, even though it is in a different way.
This is one thing I have now learnt about love, real love, it stays even when the person is gone. He left over a year ago, but I still need him to be okay, I need him to be happy and to thrive, I need him to be healthy and successful , because the sad reality of my love for him is that it is stronger than my self love could ever be.
I chose him over myself the first time he asked me to need him and I let myself do just that. I gave him my heart trusting he would keep it safe and even after he broke it, I didn't take it back. I left all of the shattered, damaged, bloody pieces with him. Because when all is said and done, he is still the part of me I cherish the most.
In the past 12 months I have put him above me more times than I can count. I have exposed myself to suffering like no other- being there for him to take from, when I myself had nothing left to give. Every time he needed me I was there- ready to slice myself open and give him more, and every time I did, he turned around and gave it to someone else.
The person he bled for. I think this is where we are very different. I gave him my all, and he gave her all he took from me.
I was sceptical of love before him, but I was never cruel. I never misled or lied to people. I never took what I couldn't give and I never took more than the other person could offer. I would have never taken from someone to give to another, because even in my guarded heart I knew that this was the kind of pain no one deserves.
To have your love and trust betrayed is one thing, but to be made to feel like you were never enough- that you could never be enough; to find out that all you gave was in vain; that all you believed in was a lie; that the person you wanted forever with never wanted you; to find out that while to you they were the world, to them you were a secondhand placeholder, that is a whole other type of hell- a hell I wish no one would ever visit; a hell I would never wish on anyone; a hell I have sadly made into my new home.
So to answer my own question- can you love someone and be too far gone- yes, yes you can. Love is not always enough, especially when it is one-sided. You cannot love someone into loving you and you certainly cannot love someone for the both of you.
Now I am still in love with him, and I don't think that there will be a day when I am not; but I am too far gone- we are too far gone.
I will never be able to look at him and not feel the bitter taste of betrayal in my gut.
I will never be with him and not wonder how long is he going to stay for this time and how much more he can take and what new depths of hell he will send me to when he leaves.
I will never be able to trust him. I will never be able to look at him and not see that I wasn't enough.
But there is also a simpler way to answer this question, and it is by answering another- if you could retain the experiences and forget the feelings, if you could numb yourself for him to the point that you don't remember any of the love and the pain, you don't feel anything when you see a picture or someone mentions him, would you? If the answer is yes, then you are too far gone.
This is how I know I am. I loved him, I love him and I will continue to love him, but if I could chose to forget the love, so that I would forget the pain, I would- in a heartbeat. There isn't a thing in this world I wouldn't do to be able to go back to the woman I was before I knew him, before he broke me.
In my story, there are two versions of the adult me- the before him and the after him; and while the before me was cynical, somewhat cold and reserved , at least she was whole in her own way (she couldn't miss something she didn't know existed); but the after him- she is barely human, barely alive and more cynical then ever before. She knows love exists, but only associates it with pain; she will never trust again; she is closed off and alone; she puts on masks she is tired of wearing and dreads every sunrise because its only a reminder that one more day has come in which she not enough.
