Recently, a romantic relationship of mine ended. The relationship was one of the most complex I have ever experienced. Complex in mostly good ways and some bad ways too. The relationship lasted 6 years. It was a combination of on and off again romance, and friendship. The most recent being romantic and that part ending a few months ago. I wish I could give the entire story, but it is too long. The way I can best sum it up is me finding a beautiful, kind, loving, and incredible human, who I fell deeply in love with and them with me. It wasn’t until last night and me being on my second night of not being able to sleep that I came up with how I caused this relationship to end.
I am an over-thinker. It serves me well in some aspects of my life, but ultimately it is more of a hindrance than a helper. I think that the main emotion behind my overthinking is fear. Fear of things happening and overthinking is my way of trying to make sure they don’t. I could name a ton of examples of times fear has impacted my life in a negative way. I can also name a lot of times where I was able to overcome fear and the thing I feared never happened. You’d think I would know that and not let it happen, but unfortunately that is not quite the case. In regards to feelings for others and putting myself out there to both give and receive love, fear has played more of a factor than I’d care to admit.
In this relationship, the fear was extremely powerful due some outside factors related to this person. The main factor was kids, and all the things that come with a single mother trying to date while also trying to raise children. The fear trickled in early on and all the things that I feared could go wrong with those factors led me to not pursue the relationship to the extent that I should have based on normal terms. That repeated itself more times than I care to admit. I was scared of getting hurt, scared of not being liked, and scared of hurting others. I never gave it my all, I never went all in. I didn’t let my heart be led by love, it was guided by fear. All the things I feared would happen didn’t even get their chance to come to fruition and there I was, still hurt.
Fear gives off a different energy than love. Fear creates hesitation, and doubt and a plethora of other negative feelings and emotions. Our natural human reaction is to defend ourselves against such things. Since my driving energy in this relationship was fear, that person had to protect themself to a certain degree. I was still able to do certain things right, I was funny, caring and had enough charm to warrant still having hope for. Looking back at it now, my existence in the relationship through fear created the need for that person to create a shield to guard them from the emotions that fear created. All those emotions created a distance between us. A way to not move forward. This metaphorical shield was extremely penetrable. All it took was to lead with love, not fear. In doing that, the doubt would be replaced by certainty. The hesitation would be replaced by confidence. And the love would have gotten its best chance to develop into whatever it was destined to.
The relationship perished, and that person is now seeing someone new. I don’t know this for sure, but I am assuming with this person, they don’t have to put the shield up. This new person has met their children, is intertwined with their friends, and is leading with love not fear. All the things I was not. She doesn’t need her shield anymore. It sucks, and I am hurt, but as I was thinking about this, I couldn’t help but think about my next relationship and how I can make sure this doesn’t happen again. It got me thinking about a word my Uncle always refers to when talking about love, that word is “magic”. Love and magic go hand in hand. The magic is the little moments, the dance in the kitchen while making dinner, the going back for a kiss after already getting one, because you want just one more, a head on the shoulder as you lay on the couch. It is easy to let the busy-ness of life get in the way, but that's the great thing about the magic, it doesn’t take much, just simply looking out for those little moments. A wink from across the table, sending a song that reminds you of them, a deep kiss that feels like it goes on forever. When you lead with love, the magic can come naturally and easily. The one thing that will stop the magic is the shield. The shield that is built by fear. The fear that can make the possible, impossible.
A sad way to sum up this relationship was that if I died, that person probably wouldn’t know about it for a while. I know that is a morbid example, but it is true. Imagine someone you love deeply, and who loves you back not knowing that you died. None of my family or friends would know to reach out to her and let her know that something happened. That is what the fear I brought to the table created in this relationship. I can’t think of any other relationship in my life where that is the case, and it makes me really sad that I let that happen. That is the type of thing fear creates and I do believe that should not be the case for anyone who we love in our life.
Fear serves certain purposes. It has its place, but its place is minor. So I say goodbye to this person. They will forever hold a special place in my heart. They can put down their shield now and experience love the way that they truly deserve. As for me, I walk away learning the lesson of the fear and the shield. I want to go forward leading my life with love, not fear. Not just in romance, but in all things I do. There is magic out there that needs to be made, and although I don’t have the exact recipe, I do know that fear is not an ingredient. Thank you for reading!