There were times when I felt certain that I loved you, but if it was love, it wasn't like anything you hear about. It was fury and irritation, and an insane sensitivity to the least little thing. It was fear of loss, of having. It was feeling that I had stopped being myself and was becoming a stranger to the person I had been. It was this powerful force that made me think about you even though I wouldn't talk to you. And there were times when I felt equally certain that I felt nothing at all. There were emotions just waiting below the surface. Emotions that did not seem logically connected with words or with our relationship, and which I knew were somehow part of it. How could I be attracted to you, care for you, and still be so annoyed with you? How could you feel the same way about me? Somewhere I felt there was a gap between my image of love and the reality of it. This gap wasn't something I'd been prepared for.
It was confusing how the passion came and went. Sometimes I felt we were connected deeply. I knew what I wanted more powerfully and vividly than anything I had ever wanted. And there were times when your merest glance would piss me off. At times it was almost as if you were a different woman from the one who slept beside me at night, as if I was sharing my bed with a stranger who'd invaded my life. No. Sometimes, I felt like I was a different person, that something within me had changed in a way that I couldn't understand. You were the source of a variety of emotions that both pleased and frightened me. I was afraid of losing you, but felt like running away. And yet, every time I thought about ending things, I couldn't. Somehow, in some way, you had gained power over me, and I both hated this and loved it.
Where did my anger come from? I'm dammed if I can find any reason for it. I was just unduly sensitive to your behavior. It was as if everything you did had a magnified effect on me. What, in any other person, I would have dismissed as a minor issue, somehow became a major flaw in you. Words, which from anyone else would have been simply a joke, became subtle insults and put downs. I can easily remember the times you hurt me, or insulted me, or told me I was foolish.
I know that you were unreasonable, at time, and I was in the right. During those times I knew that I should have waited for you to come and apologize. My pride demanded it, and so did the anger within me. Yet somehow I always found myself going to you, murmuring an apology, and reaching out to take your hand. And just as strangely as everything else, I found that this made me, if not happy, at least content.
People are contradictory, annoying and sometimes selfish. Just like I was. Words that I should of spoken, never were. I could not entertain the idea that your feelings were as deep as mine. It was my love that meant so much more. My pain was so much more intense. If I've learned anything, it's that you can have everything in the world, but if you don't have love it all becomes meaningless.
Wow. so much in this.
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