I'm Hard to Love

Sometimes people can be quite in love with each other but just not good for one another. I've reflected on that thought quite often for being only 23-years-old. Sometimes problems just seem to stack up in a relationship and neither person can figure out which way to turn. At least that's how I feel. Sometimes two people can hold so much love for one another but just are not good for each other.

The cheesiest man to ever exist, had left this sauce packet for me many months ago. It was part of his thing, he used to just buy me things and give me more than I ever could have asked for. I knew right then and there he was the man I was supposed to marry, after I had received this sauce packet from him. Cheesy as it might sound, the first sauce packet he had left for me was labeled as, "Let's run away together." Maybe we should have disappeared together. Sometimes there is no going back within a relationship. And sometimes the hurt just somehow piles up and becomes too much for the other person to bear. At least that is what I like to think happened to us over this past year, of pandemic love.

I do not like feeling bought. I'd prefer being given a hot cup of coffee rather than being bought materialistic gifts, although they are appreciated. Sometimes it's just the gesture, just the thought of someone, sometimes that is all a person needs to feel wanted.

Feeling abandoned in your own relationship, because there just are too many problems to exist, is just unhealthy. And it does work in both ways. Not every relationship is meant to be a fairytale romance, but this was the one to be "it" for me. Or at least I told myself that. The man I was supposed to marry will be someone I carry around inside my heart forever. The way he sought to cheer me up was something I took for granted, because sometimes with depression and anxiety there is no cheering someone up. I honestly did not appreciate the way I had felt abandoned in my own little world and I don't think he had meant to harm me in that sense. But so many little, childish things stacked completely up until the problems overturned to the point that you couldn't unrun them.

I had just thrown away the first sauce package that he had given me. It felt right back then when I did it. Because I was so mad at him for leaving me, and for the multiple different ways he had damaged my heart. I really was pissed off. I kept that a secret from him. I think that he always knew that I did throw it away. Because he gave me this leftover sauce packet without saying a single word. I knew then and there that this man was more important to me than words could ever express.

I came across a quote that read this, "I am not searching for my other half because I am not half." And that struck me inside on a deeper level. I knew when this relationship had fallen apart that I would be left feeling empty inside. But maybe that is what the quote means, that I am not empty without having a partner alongside me. I am still me. I still get to be myself. Maybe I get to reflect on that quote. Maybe I am hard to love. Because of my kids. Because I live with mental illness. Because I am a hard person to get to know, even if I wear my heart upon my sleeve.

I don't really know what the reason that our relationship fell apart was anymore. But I do know that I am hard to love. I am okay with knowing that fact. I get to feel empty inside more than I give myself credit for. And this last relationship of mine did such a massive number on my head, I don't know how I could ever see myself back out there inside the dating world. This last relationship taught me so much about myself in both good ways and bad. I will allow myself to honour that feeling that I hold inside of me.

Sitting here, typing these words out, I know that I am not whole without someone, but I will not sit still and feel incomplete next to another human being, not ever again. That feeling inside me deserves to be squashed. After all the pain that I had and continued to experience after exiting my last toxic relationship. How do I keep pulling myself forward when I truly thought that this was the relationship to be it for me? I truly thought that I was going to marry this person from the moment that I had met them. But when there is too much pain and unforgiveness, it is hard to move forward. That right there is what I call endurance. I know that there will someday be that person I am supposed to marry. I know that I will find that in somebody someday. But until that day strikes me, I am going to continue to share my stories, in hopes that someone else isn't left alone within their own tragic love stories.

Chloe Rose Violet