Love

I just finished watching a nice movie called Bonus Track. It's a cute love story between two teenage boys, united by music and finding their own way through life. A bit corny, as those kind of movies tend to be, but really sweet and lovely. The main character is even played by Kate Winslet's son! And, no, I didn't know she had a son either. 

The movie was great but it made me a bit sad. Love stories often do that to me. I love love. I love the idea of falling in love with someone. I love reading about love. Watching movies and shows and listening to songs about love. I tend to look for love in every part of the world. I'll find it in stories where it's not the main focus or lyrics that weren't meant to be about it. I just love love so much. I think it's because I lack a bit of it. It's not that I'm not loved, because I am. I'm lucky to have loving friends and even family. But I never really known romantic love. Not in the main way, at least. 

I've always had crushes. Ever since I was a very little girl. I'd find some boy in my class and I'd daydream about them constantly. It was my way to make school more enjoyable. It didn't matter if my teachers were mean or my grades bad. Not if I had a chance to catch a glimpse of my crush in the hallways or classroom. I was shy and awkward and full of anxiety so I never acted on anything. I never said anything to any of them. I just became friends with them, tried to stay close and stuff like that. I was eleven, thirteen, sixteen and I thought I was dumb and ugly and annoying and that none of them would ever like me back. Boys didn't have crushes on me. I was the weird, silent kid in the back of the room. I had okay grades, I wasn't emo or too loud. I was friends with the popular kids but not officially. I went to my day-to-day life without really knowing my place in the school hierarchy. So I never tried anything. Being friends was enough for little old me. 

I've seen my crushes get crushes and these people succeeding at what I was too afraid to even try. They went out, held hands and walked together after school. They'd exchange notes in the classroom and smile at each other in the hallways. And I was always twenty steps behind. Only two boys ever got crushes on me; the first one ate the grass in the school yard and the second one liked every single girl in our school. They were weird and I thought it was all I ever deserved. Weird boys for the weird girl. 

Once, I shot my shot. I was older, eighteen I think or maybe nineteen and felt brave enough to try. I had a huge crush on one of my coworkers. He was a bit older and the kindest soul I've ever met. He always laughed at my jokes, would come to my desk personally every morning to greet me or just smiled everytime we locked eyes. Every day was like my own personal romcom whenever he was there. He'd come stand near to me in group settings and we'd have private jokes. I stayed overtime so many times just to have the chance to talk to him. And I believed I had a chance. So I tried. No need to say it didn't went as planned. We stayed close afterwards but I always felt a bit awkward about it. He stayed kind and gentle and never said anything. He even offered to lend me money, once, when I talked to my troubles with him. He was kind of my white knight. I always cringe a bit thinking about it, nowadays. My own love life makes me cringe because it's barely something. Only false hopes and crushed dreams. 

Love makes me sad. I yearn for it. For someone to really see me and fall in love with me and for me to love them back. To share something special with someone. A bond. And I'm saying that but I know that, if I had an occasion to know it, I'd run far away. I'm terrified of it. I don't know how to act, what to say or who to be. I'm scared. I often feel like I'm too old for a first love, now. I missed my chance. And I've been thinking this way since I was sixteen. I'll never have an elementary school boyfriend or a high school sweetheart. I know nothing. I never kissed anyone. Never even held hands! I'm scared of intimacy and sitting too close to anyone who's not my friend. I haven't got a crush on anyone in almost five years because I haven't met anyone new in almost five years. I don't even fall in love with strangers in the bus or the train anymore. What if my love is broken? What if I never find the perfect person I've been looking for all this time? I just want love. But even love is just too much. The idea of love is comforting but only when it's safe, inside my head. 

I'm turning twenty five this year. It's twenty five years without love. 

What am I supposed to do at this point? Should I just give up? Become a spinster? I'll be the aunt with cats who never found love. The girl no one ever loved back. Or if it was the case, I just didn't get the signs. Maybe people loved me but maybe I was just too much inside my own head to realize it. Or maybe it wasn't just that. Maybe things were too confusing and I lost myself in the process. It seems so easy for most people, thought. Most my friends know love and they are great at it. They're not afraid of loving. Or maybe they are, but their fear doesn't stop them from loving. I wish I was brave like them. 

I'd like to meet love. I'd like to go out, bump shoulders with a stranger in the street and fall in love. Go to the cinema and sit next to my soulmate. But I don't go outside. And even when I'm part of the world, I stay inside of myself. Where I'm safe and alone and sad. But still safe. I'd love to be brave and adventurous. I'd love to be someone else. Someone who doesn't have troubles with love. Someone for whom love comes easy. Someone who's not me. 

But, alas, I am me. And I can't change that. So I'll continue to watch sappy movies and feel a bit hollow at the end of it. I'll carry my loneliness with me, treating her as a friend and companion. I'll love my friends and my cats and my family. And maybe, one day, I'll meet someone who loves me and whom I can love back. And I hope it'll be easy. And I hope it won't be too long before it happens. I'm scared to die without any kiss on my lips. Without any hand printed inside the skin of my palm. Without my heart beating. 

In the song "Dust and Ashes" from the musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, the character of Pierre sings "They say we are asleep until we fall in love / We are children of dust and ashes / But when we fall in love we wake up / And we are a god and angels weep / But if I die here tonight / I die in my sleep" and "They say we are asleep until we fall in love / And I'm so ready / To wake up now / I wanna wake up / Don't let me die while I'm like this" and I feel like it sums up very well of I feel about this.