Silly Love Songs
I asked my mom once for advice on how to handle my new crush on a friend. I was afraid that if I told him what I felt, he would tell me he didn't feel the same way. He would tell me he didn't want to be my friend anymore. But that's exactly what she told me to do. She said to ask him out for coffee and to tell him I kinda liked him. I said, Uh, no way, Mom. No, no, no, no, no. No.
I am heartbroken.
Just so you know, it is very possible to have your heart broken and yet never have given to any one person. Because I never have.
My mom told me I am afraid to let people in. As you might guess, that shocked me to my very core. Not. What shocked me was that she had noticed. It must be pretty obvious if someone I've lived with for, collectively, maybe two years out of the past ten had noticed.
What I've done instead is read all about love and watch my favorite characters fall in it. I was there, rooting for Chandler and Monica's unexpected romance, and slapping my forehead when Ross and Rachel just couldn't seem to figure it out. Rhett and Scarlett, Elizabeth and Darcy, Rick and Ilsa, Catherine and Heathcliff. I lived my life through books and movies and television shows, even when I couldn't go to the library, or when we didn't have cable.
What I got for it was a lot of high expectations. I expected, eventually, to fall in love the way they all did, to know exactly what that felt like, to have my somebody important. (I also expected to be asked to the prom as a joke and stand on my porch waiting for my hot date, only to be pelted by eggs. But that's for another time.)
So I waited. I crushed. I started early, in kindergarten. Two boys in second grade. My best friend outed me at lunch one day in fifth grade. He was sitting right there, across the table from me, but I couldn't look at him or anybody else. In sixth grade I might have finally had a prospect, a scribbled phone number and smiley face in the back of my yearbook. Instead I went into home school.
When I was fourteen, there was a boy. He smiled at me, talked to me, invited me on a bike ride. He might have been my boyfriend. I can't be sure because he never told me he was. I went back to dad's at the end of the summer. I kept waiting.
Ninth grade was terrifying after three years of a school where I was at the top of my class and where everybody loved me. I remember walking the halls and everybody was so much taller than me. There must have been something in the water there because there were so many boys in high school. Oh, there were so many boys in high school. Alas, I kept waiting.
I decided the problem was that I didn't talk to boys enough. So when I found somebody it was so easy to talk to, I thought I was finally there. But he wasn't waiting anymore. And neither was the next guy. Or any of the ones after that. So I kept waiting.
And here I am, still waiting to find my somebody, but what can I do when everybody else has found their somebody? Or has simply decided that I am not their somebody?
None of those boys were given my heart. I didn't trust them with it. I knew they'd break it. What I didn't count on was that it would be broken anyway.
Because you don't have to give your heart away to lose it to love.
(And, of course, once I was reminded that The Mother had sung this on How I Met Your Mother, how could I not post that as well?)
I am heartbroken.
Just so you know, it is very possible to have your heart broken and yet never have given to any one person. Because I never have.
My mom told me I am afraid to let people in. As you might guess, that shocked me to my very core. Not. What shocked me was that she had noticed. It must be pretty obvious if someone I've lived with for, collectively, maybe two years out of the past ten had noticed.
What I've done instead is read all about love and watch my favorite characters fall in it. I was there, rooting for Chandler and Monica's unexpected romance, and slapping my forehead when Ross and Rachel just couldn't seem to figure it out. Rhett and Scarlett, Elizabeth and Darcy, Rick and Ilsa, Catherine and Heathcliff. I lived my life through books and movies and television shows, even when I couldn't go to the library, or when we didn't have cable.
What I got for it was a lot of high expectations. I expected, eventually, to fall in love the way they all did, to know exactly what that felt like, to have my somebody important. (I also expected to be asked to the prom as a joke and stand on my porch waiting for my hot date, only to be pelted by eggs. But that's for another time.)
So I waited. I crushed. I started early, in kindergarten. Two boys in second grade. My best friend outed me at lunch one day in fifth grade. He was sitting right there, across the table from me, but I couldn't look at him or anybody else. In sixth grade I might have finally had a prospect, a scribbled phone number and smiley face in the back of my yearbook. Instead I went into home school.
When I was fourteen, there was a boy. He smiled at me, talked to me, invited me on a bike ride. He might have been my boyfriend. I can't be sure because he never told me he was. I went back to dad's at the end of the summer. I kept waiting.
Ninth grade was terrifying after three years of a school where I was at the top of my class and where everybody loved me. I remember walking the halls and everybody was so much taller than me. There must have been something in the water there because there were so many boys in high school. Oh, there were so many boys in high school. Alas, I kept waiting.
I decided the problem was that I didn't talk to boys enough. So when I found somebody it was so easy to talk to, I thought I was finally there. But he wasn't waiting anymore. And neither was the next guy. Or any of the ones after that. So I kept waiting.
And here I am, still waiting to find my somebody, but what can I do when everybody else has found their somebody? Or has simply decided that I am not their somebody?
None of those boys were given my heart. I didn't trust them with it. I knew they'd break it. What I didn't count on was that it would be broken anyway.
Because you don't have to give your heart away to lose it to love.
(And, of course, once I was reminded that The Mother had sung this on How I Met Your Mother, how could I not post that as well?)
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