Bridges

"You keep mentioning your ex too. You are still so in love with him. Why don't you just call him up and let him know you want to be back together?" He asked me. I guess I had the way I still felt every second of every day written all over my face in bright red paint.
"Because it's not that simple," I replied. What I really wanted to say was, "I've done that before though. I have cried, I have pleaded, I have screamed, I have tried analyzing, I have tried everything on God's green earth, and I still don't have him."

Why is unrequited love so painful? Because we have this image in our heads of the way things could be, and the way things were. We think back on the happy times, the giggles, the cuddles, the knowing a person like the back of your hand.

And you look back on the days and you realize how many of them have gone by without him being physically present. To you, it feels like he's been with you every millisecond. You have carried him around like a pebble in your shoe that you've become so accustomed to you often forget that it's there. And then you jump or run or walk a long distance and you feel it from the bottoms of your toes to the top of your head. It's that gnawing feeling that you can't shake.

The first day I met him I never imagined that I would still be writing about this 2 years later, still missing him, still longing for love that he can never give to me. I cannot let this go. I still find myself longing for his touch and the sound of his voice. I pick up the phone to call him, to mend a hole in the bridge that has been built between us, only to remember that I didn't break the bridge. He did. He broke it with a purposefulness and reckless abandon. He isn't helping me mend it and I cannot fix this myself. If I fall, I go crashing down to be swept underneath the water, losing my breath in the process. He sits comfortably in his home, blissfully unaware of my struggles, and at times entertained by them.

After falling into the water so many times, you'd think I've grown weary. And I have. Yet I set out to mend this bridge and I've risked so much in the process that I can't stop until it's complete. But I can't do it alone. I've learned that.