Camus would say: this is the human condition — to long, to lose, and to continue anyway. I knew he was building a life somewhere else, and perhaps I should admire that, but what lingered was not admiration, it was the hollowing feeling of being forgotten in the pursuit of someone else's future. I loved him. Deeply. And even if he couldn't return that love in the way I needed, that doesn't make my love a waste, it makes it proof that I'm capable of a real connection. Which is a beautiful, terrifying, holy thing.
I wasn't asking him to throw his dreams away. I was just hoping that someone who said he cared would care all the way through.
I can be right that he was struggling, that he wasn't proud of where he was, that he couldn't handle love because he didn't love where he was in life. But I can also be right that I didn't deserve to be the collateral damage for his pain. I'm grieving a future that could never exist not because I wasn't enough or too much, but because he wasn't ready. And I don't have to punish myself for believing in someone too much.
Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is stand still long enough to feel everything fully and then move forward with intention.
Edited: August 3, 2025 10:24 AM CST
Time will pass and things that appeared so big will become so much more smaller once you open your eyes