nothing left to lose

How do you get hope back, once you lost it?

I never considered my dreams big. I wanted to be a part of changing the world, with my pen. I wanted a life partner, a home and a business of our own.

And most of all, I wanted love.

Remember that optimism we had in our 20s? Boy…nothing could beat that force of nature. It was a mighty thunderstorm, with hail as big as eggs, destroying all pessimism. Fucking generation before us, they don’t know shit about us and the world we live in. We will do better!

I miss that. It’s like with youth, you don’t even realize what you have until it’s gone.

But I don’t miss the youth per se. I miss this driving force that could move mountains just on the belief that it could be done. No amount of realism could deter it.

That is the place from which I left into the world at 18. I ran away from home as soon as I could. I tried earlier but the options for making it on your own in a female body as a teenager were very slim. Specifically if you live in Eastern Europe in a poor, patriarchal society.

(I’m getting mighty tired of people judging girls for trying to make a decent living, without even knowing anything about girlhood. If you are one of those people, a sincere fuck you, from me to you.)

I didn’t waste any time. I found a partner who was looking for the same type of domesticity I was and together, we grew up for a while. He got me into the industry game, I gave him a push, a lot of ambition and youth energy. It worked for a while, until it didn’t.

You see, I wasn’t in love. Not just any love, the kind that you only see in the movies, the infatuation that melts ships and makes people go to war. I wanted passion and fireworks. I wanted LOVE, the love of happily ever after.

And what me wants, me gets. I left the bosom of security, comfort, respect, partnership and tepid sex directly into a whirlwind romance, possessive and jealous, can’t live without you I will murder you if you go with another one and leave me kind of infatuation.

It destroyed me. I neglected everything else for that all consuming passion. My health, my well being, my career, my friends, my dreams. Everything. I remember those days, I remember feeling like nothing could be better than this and any kind of sacrifice was worth it. I remember never wanting it to end and thinking I would die if it did.

I didn’t die, I just ended up in the psychiatric hospital, another failed suicide attempt. I was just a statistic and a cliché at that. Poor little rich girl, crying and wanting to kill herself cause her boyfriend doesn’t love her anymore. People have real problems here, missy!

I somehow managed to heal and leave. I somehow managed to let go. I somehow managed to grow and understand that this was not love.

(I loved 500 days of summer, the movie. It felt so real and painful to see myself naive and stupid on the screen)

But then, what is love? And how do you first love yourself and then others?

I didn’t get to answer that before I repeated the pattern.

The second whirlwind romance. But this time, let’s kick it up a notch. Let’s also get married, 4 months in. Let’s move in together, without any concrete plan, let’s just be guided by our extraordinary love. Let’s inhale each other and hope that it will work out, because this is movie love and it happens so rarely. Must be destiny, or the universe, or some other stupid spiritual shit like that. How can it not work?

Spoiler: it didn’t. This time I didn’t end up in the hospital because I already had a doctor and he gave me the sad pills before I fell into the black hole of despair. That helped, not gonna lie. I didn’t die.

But something in me did.

And it took four years to figure it out. To understand that it had to die, so I can live.

I understand love better now. I understand the difference between love and infatuation. It almost cost me my life, but I understand finally.

Rationally.

Emotionally, the lesson hasn’t sink it yet.

I miss that hope. That hope of youth, that hope of love, that hope that makes you go on date after bad date, until you find someone you could tolerate to spend time with. Someone who might in time even come to love you.

How do you get that hope back? How do you let others in again?

It’s been four years now and the prospect of intimacy and letting someone in makes me want to run and hide. I don’t want to fall in love. I don’t want to have sex. I don’t want to even think about having a romantic partner. Business partner? Friends? Sure.

I am afraid of being touched, I am afraid of letting someone else in my life. I am afraid of depending on someone else. I am afraid of not being in control of my life.

Because it has gone to shit. The worst has happened. And it would kill me if it would happen again.

I have other dreams now. I still want to be part of changing the world, with my pen. I still want to love. But I want to love those who need it and have been abandoned. I want to give it all to animals and children.

And while that gives me joy and something to work forward to…I can’t help but feel a void in my soul.

No matter how misguided, I miss that optimism and hope. I miss it driving me.

How do you get that back? Can you get it back?

Life is but an illusion.