Image Credit: Sarah Horrigan, Flickr

The one woman I think I loved most in my recent history didn’t quite like me back that way. I was sure she was The One; I was entranced by how her eyes lit up around children and young people, how easy she was to talk to, and how her voice – soft and mellow yet steely when required – seemed to exude this aura of quiet strength. Even her awkward moments seemed cute, the tilt of her chin when she pretended to not see me across the room and the mumbled words when I could tell she was furiously inventing excuses to not meet up.

When she managed to find time for me in her chock-full social calendar, we would sit across a table at Starbucks – pair of matching lattes and carrot cake to hand – and catch up about everything; life, work and the myriad in between. I was in awe of how much about everything she knew, how we could talk ceaselessly about everything from art to the latest hole in the wall around town, and travelling. These times would make hope sprout anew in my heart – there was something there beyond mere politeness I felt.

Thoughts of her fuelled sleepless nights, ones in which I played various what ifs and maybes in my head, trying to find a context in which what she had said  – when she managed to articulate it  – meant something less ominous than what in all probability she had meant to say any way.

I could see the pity in my friend O’s eyes when he and I spoke, at the pining obvious in my eyes and the – his words not mine- softness that crept into my voice when I spoke about her. Somehow for all of two years I managed to hope against hope that somehow she would see my inner coolness – rust and all – and get to experience all this love bottled up in inside.

I suspect part of me didn’t want to accept the implicit rejection. In choosing to risk rejection I had invested a significant part of my emotional reserve in the venture, having it thrown back in my face wasn’t necessarily an option –  which was why I probably persisted beyond reason. In the end though, one can only take so many bashings before self doubt and pragmatism wears one down.

I think I reached that point yesterday… And I finally decided letting go and loosing couldn’t be much worse than the torture I’d dragged myself through for all of 2 years and some.

So…. If anyone knows how to get someone who has been lodged inside your head for all of 2 years, 19 days and 4 hours out, pray tell… Answers on a postcard pretty please…