How Long Should You Wait for Somebody to Love You?

Pining after a person is, well, much like I imagine swallowing a whole pine cone would be: bloody painful.

It’s debilitating and paralysing and sure, there are cute and hopeful moments sprinkled in between, but the majority are insufferable. I hate it. And yet? It seems to be my biggest hobby.

Want to know the saddest thing I’ve written in my journal?

“Why is it that the one boy I’m so painfully pining after is the one boy who’s not even a boy at all? He’s this abstract entity, a blue moon boy and though I’m desperately staring up at the stars, waiting for his return, I’m missing the people here below. The ones that aren’t him, they don’t have his soul or his stories or his [redacted for privacy reasons, but man was it poetic].

But maybe they have other things, things I can actually grasp, things I can carry with me, things I don’t have to wait around for, moments slipping by that could instead be filled with such intrinsic love. Blue moons are beautiful, but I want a lilac moon. A moon seen through my rose-tinted glasses in each and every moment, with the blue moon days infused into them. I want to be wanted like I want him. I want to be the starlit sky that somebody gazes up at. I want to be the horizon and the atmosphere and the very Earth. I want to be somebody’s whole entire world.

How long must you want something before it becomes real?”

Waiting Around for That Blue Moon Person

They say, “only once in a blue moon will you find a person like that.” You know, like that. That good, that perfect, that human who was born from the same starbits as you and carved into the second half of your own heart. And in my 24 years of existence (yeah that’s right. I’m not actually nine), I’ve yet to see a real life blue moon.

But that won’t stop me hoping. I refuse to write off the night sky simply because it’s taking too long. I am the Universe’s Most Impatient Person™ (as proven by science and my microwave. If it can’t be heated in under a minute then screw it, I’m having it cold) but when it comes to a matter as delicate as this, I’ll wait. I’ll learn how to wait because I know it’s something worth waiting for.

Patience is not wasting time; it’s simply making the most of the time you’re in right now whilst knowing that more good is on its way.

The thing is, though. What if you’ve already found somebody who is much like the moon to your ocean? You find yourself chasing after them, pulled in by their gravity, desperately reaching out to graze their glowing skin and it’s beautiful. They’re beautiful. They’re tethered to your heart and you are mesmerised by them, but then daytime arrives and they’ve slipped away. What if you’ve found your moon, but they’ve yet to turn blue?

You know the one. That person who you are wholly enamoured with, no matter what it is they do or say or, oftentimes, the lack thereof. They’re an unstable presence in your life, you can never predict what might happen next, but you’re more than willing to stick around for the show. For whatever inexplicable reason, you will fight for them even if it takes you several years simply to get them to step foot onto the battlefield. That person you love, and you hate it. Why? Because they cause you pain. Their infrequency in your life, their inability to give you an answer, their uncertain nature — it stings. You spend all your nights staring up at the moon in awe and they barely remember to tell you goodnight.

How long should you wait then? How long do you sit around, hopelessly hopeful, in the hopes that this moon will turn blue? How long do you give them to show you that they love you?

What is the duration between giving up too soon and giving your life away to the blue moon?

You’ll be Left Feeling Blue

Don’t wait. Not at all. If you waste your life waiting for a blue moon, the only thing getting bluer will be your heart.

Stop thinking that you have to sit around and wait. This isn’t a queue. You’re not lining up for VIP tickets to the midnight showing of Twilight’s Eclipse. There’s not a finite supply of the Good Love™, in which you have to camp outside the store days in advance just to be sure you’ll receive it. There’s no delivery date nor Amazon driver nor seasonal harvest. There’s nothing to wait for — your person is out there already, same as you. There’s no “right time” here. If you’ve found this person and they’re causing you pain, dragging you along, filling you with fake promises and leaving you empty — then they’re simply not the one.

Though there might be those times that they give you the love you’ve been waiting for — this powerful, potent love — those moments come around every once in a blue moon, and you deserve them beneath every moon, every night, forever.

Don’t hold out for a blue moon. But don’t settle for a regular ol’ moon either. Don’t wait around for those fleeting happy moments nor settle for being merely content. Find somebody who makes every moment your happiest. Find yourself a lilac moon.

That person who sees every day of your life through rose tinted glasses, but throws the blue moon days in, too. The person who romanticises the little things alongside you, who turns vacuuming into a musical theatre production and a big shop into a game-show. The person who can make you feel a kind of happiness that occurs only once in a, well, you know, but always. No matter what entity resides in the sky above. Whether there’s a full moon or a rain cloud or half painted ceiling, you know their love is grazing it, filling every inch of the air and slipping into your lungs just to wiggle it’s way into your heart.

If you wait any longer, you’ll be waiting forever.

Maybe that’s why it’s called “getting pied.” Because, after 3.1415 eternities of waiting, you get a pi in your face (and that’s not where pie is meant to go).

So stop waiting around. No amount of time is going to solve this for you. Complex numbers are not your answer here. Take the pi out of pine and you will be fine. Good things come to those who wait. But the best things belong to those who go get them.

Don’t wait around for a blue moon.

Find your lilac.

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Oh hey, whilst you’re here: why not put the “em” into your “emails” and lob your name onto my mailing list for weekly em-bellishments on my rose-tinted, crumb-coated lens of life. It’s the equivalent of the reduced section in the supermarket (low value Weird Crap™ that you didn’t know you needed).