Dear Grace,
You are new. A fresh face I haven’t seen yet, and I know a broken heart when I see one so I feel like I can put my trust in yours with mine. My heart has splintered so many times that I’ve began to lose count and it’s began to tear at my soul, I’m just hanging on by now. I don’t know what to do anymore, Grace. With everyone that I meet, I end up sacrificing what I swear to be the last piece of myself internally. I had this perfect dream once, you know? As we all have at some point. Let me tell you this though, I was cheated on, and I lost the child and nearly my own life but more importantly, I’m afraid that I lost theirs. Being forced to lose a close friend who died for me just so that I could move on with my life after my fiancee and child was kidnapped has made life all the more harder to deal with.
I can’t sleep at night, and I’m restless. Although I wish I could, I can’t handle it anymore: the anticipation, the second-guessing, the hoping, and the grief all combined. For as many times as I have put myself out there for that special person, I keep being cut short of a life that I had gladly welcomed beside mine. They walk away, the leave, and abandon me all for nothing. And I want to know why! For as many times as I have died for that person, no matter where I look, she seems to be in everyone. My fiancee is becoming a damn pattern, and any girl I pass by I just have this instant urge, you know what I mean? I treat these woman, with whom I meet, like gold just for that person to be snatched away from me somehow and this has started to make me numb.
I get it, I can’t blame the ones I keep losing in her image and the dream we lost over and over again just because they don’t want to give me the same thing: a successful family. A marriage, a couple of kids, and a home. I get it because they’re not her, they can never BE HER. But God, all of these things that I just want to give to someone because I had the life I always wanted, and now I just want to be the supportive husband and the father I never had, and to be fair… the one someone can have the privilege of having. But I can’t, I can’t because everywhere I turn, I keep losing her again, and again, and again. She looked away from me, she didn’t laugh at my jokes that we used to find funny, she was made sad at the idea that we could have something.
I’ve tried to move on, believe me. I have tried to forget, and leave the life behind me that was lost and never found again but Grace, what do I do? How do I handle it when it’s such normal passions and desires that most men (and women) such as myself even want but now it’s only me who can’t and them who don’t want it? I ache for growth, and everything. It hurts, and I want to stop thinking about love for once, I want to stop thinking that maybe she’s still alive and she will come walking back into my life without the horrors dragging behind her like some cursed ivory train or she and her new husband have our child (or it could even be his) of five years old and there’s no way for me to be there. I just need a family, Grace.
The family I never had.
To tell you the truth, I’m giving up. It’s come to be that there’s nothing better for me in this life than that, and that’s another fear of mine I recently found out. Dying alone and dying without any other ambition just… dying with absolutely nothing. Hell, I’m hoping this is just a midlife crisis that I’m having and one day I’ll regret writing you this but whatever. Here I am, bearing my broken pieces to you and in a way, I’m sorry for that. But it will really help to have someone else’s opinion other than my own. Thanks, Grace.
Dear Pining for Love.
First thing. I am absolutely not new, I have been here for years, sometimes just sitting in the background going unnoticed.
You are not the only one to feel any of those feelings. That’s the sad part, this city breeds lonely people. Nearly everyone wants love, marriage, and children. To have it snatched away for whatever reason hurts, it makes you feel cheated out of a promise or guarantee. Everyone is promised in Disney movies that they will get a happily ever after, when in truth relationships take work, they have their ups and downs and people are unpredictable. People don’t realise that you love differently each time with each new partner. There are people I should have burned hot for and I just loved in a gentle and quiet way. And then those I shouldn’t love at all who I burn for. Figuring that part out is part of the battle. Just because you don’t love someone the way you loved your fiance, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It’s simply right for you and that person. You cant force HER to stay with you, to laugh with you. But I do ask this, how can you love someone who takes your child from you?
Dealing with the possibility of rejection is another hard part of relationships. You cannot keep a person at your side, no matter what you do, so you have to be prepared that if they want to leave… to let them go. This doesn’t mean you should stop trying. It simply means you have to get smarter about being with someone. To wise up to your own feelings and actions. Make friends, I have no doubt that you will fall in love with one of them. Once you have a friendship set it’s easier to trust them, and easier to make it work. Surround yourself with people who share your values and dreams and perhaps… you will find yourself with the right person. Just stop looking for that all-consuming love, all it will do is burn you up and break you down more.
You say you need a family. You can have one, but you need to change what you see as a family. You can have friends as family. You can adopt children, being a single parent is hard but rewarding – trust me. You can even have a child with a close friend, someone you trust and don’t plan to be with. That… actually is the best of both worlds. Nearly everyone in Hathian have made their own family up.
Dying alone. I relate to this, I am scared that one day I will wake up, I will be old, I won’t have my looks anymore and I will be alone. Even more I am scared that I wont even have my children around me. I think many people have that problem. If you have ever seen my Twitter you will see it’s a patchwork quilt of heartbreaks, and each time I say “I won’t love again” and I fail… consistently. Try something different, make your wants and desires known to the people you are around, set boundaries… which is the hardest one of all. Just don’t give up. There will be someone out there for you. I cant and won’t ever promise that you will get a happily ever after, but perhaps strive to be happy for a while. Keep communication open with each partner you have. Make sure you fight just as hard.. but never harder on working things out.
Now… my last piece of advice, find a way to get this woman out of your system, to still burn for her would not be doing anyone any favours. To lie to her and yourself about it won’t be doing either of you any favours.
I really hope I have helped in some way. Let me know what happens, I love getting updates from those I try to help.
Grace.