How Love Can Shape Us

Love is one of the biggest defining factors in our lives, but so often that mean that tragedies are what define our lives.

This love story is a tragedy that shaped who I was as a person and eventually who I grew to be.

Since this is more recent I will call this girl A, not to be confused with Angie from the previous story.

This story began in eighth grade, just two years after my first heartbreak and I was a completely different person. Thanks to my friend and still best friend David I had come out of my shell full gaining a boisterous and charismatic personality with enough confidence to fill a room. Inside that building of bravado however that same young hopeless romantic lived. That’s when I met A she had a bright green mohawk and facial piercings in a time when facial piercings were just becoming a thing. I remember seeing that strange girl and remembering how incredibly unique she was. She was someone I had to know so naturally I charged right in and introduced myself. She had one of the most out there personalities I’d ever seen and she did it all for no other reason than she wanted too. She wasn’t popular; she wasn’t doing what she did to fit in. She did everything because that is what she wanted to do; she did it because that’s who she wanted to be and no one was going to change her mind. I remember admiring that about her. In a time where popularity and status were everything here she was carving her own path.

That admiration quickly turned romantic. As our friendship continued, I felt my feelings for her grow until I couldn’t contain them anymore. I told her how I felt, tried to be sincere, and failed. History had repeated itself, but this time something was different. Our friendship meant something to both of us, but I couldn’t shake my feelings. A year full of rejection and waiting later and I found myself with one of my many high school girlfriends. I jumped from relationship to relationship hoping to find that feeling in someone else or at least forget her, but I couldn’t. Every relationship from that point on felt like I was projecting my feelings for A onto these people I had no true romantic feelings for. I justified it by telling myself that I was making these people feel love so that had to be a good thing right? I didn’t know then how damaged I was and how I was hurting those around me. Because of this toxic behavior I ruined friendships and allowed myself to stay broken and trapped in this fantasy that one day I would be with A. I told myself that once we were together, everything would be perfect. I stopped writing, I stopped caring about myself, I stopped caring about others. My world had been consumed with her and I hadn’t even realized it, I thought that’s just what love was.

Eventually we both moved away, her to Kansas and me to Maryland, but part of me still hoped. Even with thousands of miles between us I took months to finally see what this toxic love had done to me. I wrestled with my mind trying to break myself of this addiction I‘d given myself. I stopped talking to everyone, i went months without saying a single word, without seeing a friendly face. I thought I had to cut myself from the world if I was going to move past this and that’s what I did. I had built my identity off of lving this person and the hardest part was not knowing who i was without that. It forced my to change my identity, who I am as a person. Once I’d finally decided I was strong enough to confront these feelings I began to write a series of letters describing how I felt. After I had thrown all of those emotions onto the screen, I felt the weight of years lifted from my shoulders. It was because of that experience that I remembered how much I love to write. It was because of that intense heartbreak I learned I needed to fix myself and love myself first.

Although she broke my heart from many years, warped my sense of love and what it means to be loved, I’m grateful for what I went thorugh. I can honestly say I’m thankful for the lessons it taught me because without that I couldn’t have looked back and changed for the better.

So thank you A.

Here is a copy of the last thing I ever wrote about her:

You know. I don’t really think about you anymore. I have found peace in the fact that you’ll never love me and that’s okay. It only took me twenty-five no’s, seven years, four bottles of alcohol, and two suicide attempts to figure out, but I got it. I looked back on it all and out of the 220,752,000 seconds I couldn’t find one where you weren’t on my mind. I remember thinking of you whenever I was down about how not fair life was. I remember worshiping the ground you walked on even before you knew you were beautiful. I remember thinking when I moved across the country thinking I would walk back if it meant I could be with you. I remember drinking my first whiskey. I remember how it burned going down, but I didn’t care cause it made me stop thinking of you. I remember looking down the side of the building. I remember imagining that you would catch me. I remember that I’d already fallen for you once and I wasn’t going to do it again.

Now I don’t think of you.

Thank you for tuning in this week to read another story! Sorry this one was a bit of a downer, but this story was really important in shaping the man I am today.

Although she broke my heart from many years, warped my sense of love and what it means to be loved, I’m grateful for what I went through. I can honestly say I’m thankful for the lessons it taught me because without that I couldn’t have looked back and changed for the better.