A New Year’s Resolution to Love

Oftentimes, you just need to make and commit to the decision that you deserve better. Here’s a letter I wrote, what seems like, a lifetime of New Year’s ago. It tells a story of a boy and a girl – the girl is so head over heels over the boy, whose greatest joy is to lead her on. She finally decides that she can no longer live in dumb-mode. In the end, the letter was never sent because, sometimes, truth need only be realized by the party who needs it most.

To you,

How was your New Years?  Mine was, hmm, very stimulating for the mind.  To be honest, I wasn’t up for merry-making and being social.  It’s just that I’ve been on this pathetic decline since I realized I wouldn’t obtain that fuzzy future you’ve been painting of a future with “us.”  Thanks for brain-washing me, yo, it’s kinda easy to do when I was crazy in love with you, eh?  The decline ends now.

There are moments when my heart is so full of grief that I can’t breathe.  I hide myself and silently cry and really hope that it gets easier.  There are other moments when I laugh at myself for the sheer stupidity that has decimated all logic and reason since you.  You don’t deserve a single tear from me.  I’ve looked at every exchange we’ve ever had through rose-colored glasses.  I’ve really made you out into a hero, one where you have the potential to be but one you most definitely are not, and I thought this hero would pull through.  I’ve been your lapdog, your love slave and I could swear that you get this perverse high from it.  All you need to say is “I want you” or “come” and I’m at your service.  I really meant it when I said I wanted to give you the world and it’s so tragic that that world will forever sit in limbo, it’ll never be given to you because I can’t find that last ounce of willpower to hand it over and I now realize you don’t need, want or deserve it.

I woke up to the new year with newfound inspiration.  Looking back I see my track record of loving jerks, loving guys who would never let me in ALL THE WAY.  It needs to stop because I want someone who, metaphorically speaking, on the day that he decides he wants me, he opens his doors.  He’s so sure of himself that he might even put a prop in place and what a perk it would be if he should give me a copy of the key.  That’s what every girl wants, right?  When it comes down to it, he keeps his word, he calls when he says he will, he laughs freely and often, he doesn’t add fuel to the fire when I’m ready to hurl breakables across the room, he revels in my happiness as I do in his and without even saying a word, he can tell me that his life is made brighter and more meaningful simply because I exist within it.

How come I know you can’t do this?  It’s just not possible with you.  I’ve been so drawn to the man you could be that I’m overlooking the man you are.  You’re not ready for me.  You don’t want me.  You don’t deserve me.  You’re not ready to let me in.  You’re not ready to love me in the ways I most desire.  You’re not willing to give me all of you because that’s the only way I want it.  I truly believe if you wanted me as much as I wanted you, you would’ve pulled a Jerry Maguire by now and had me at “hello.”  You would’ve snatched me up. Instead, you’re happy to bathe in my love-vibes so long as you don’t have to return it.

The truth being you don’t want me, the sadder truth is you don’t even want me as a friend.  You say you do but, quite frankly, you don’t need my friendship.  You’re fine without it and I’m fine without yours.  You only want to keep me for backup.  Should things fall apart, should you truly need a friend, should you need to quench that “hunger” of yours, I’m on reserve for you.  That’s pathetic.  The rules of friendship are rather simple and easy but you’ve managed to make a mess of it.

I hesitate to say you’re cold and selfish because I’ve seen parts of you that have epitomized warm and loving, generous and giving.  Instead, you are…restrained.  I believe that trait of yours is, in part, a lifestyle choice.  It’s so hard to make you budge, to make you bond, to make you want to and actually give back, to make you wanna love me back.  It’s so hard to make you express love so that it becomes an exchange, not a pent-up phantom.  You asked, I answer: This is why girls fall for you and leave only to run off and meet their next great love.  After you, they realize they could never survive without their love being returned.  It’d be a brutal beating to the heart to long and never have, made worse by the fact that you stand right next to them.

I’m a complete idiot because I’ve really let this infatuation with you conjure up obscure, convoluted excuses and rationalizations that don’t make one iota of sense in the world I want to live in.  This whole time, I’ve been so ridiculously nice to you: When you let me down, I cheer you up.  When you reject me, I send good energy your way.  When you tell me “no,” I smile it off.  Dude, I’m the dumbest b$!@# I know – it’s a frickin riot!  No more.  One day you’re gonna realize I was the best thing for you.  One day you’re gonna be ready for my love.  When that day comes, I’ll be long gone.