I think I attract disaster. Or disaster attracts me, which is, although unfortunate, far more likely. I am currently in the position of life to be frustrated with a world that tries to make life look easy. Life is not easy—that’s a massive, ugly lie. Life is complicated! Living involves daily, heart-affecting decisions, it involves investment—in people, and it involves words and actions that affect more than the physical. Life is not easy. Relationships are not easy. There are people that always say, “You’ll get over it.” “He’ll get over her.” “She’ll get over him.” But I wonder if that’s not just another lie. We are human beings, with deep souls and the ability to recall memories that, try as we may to hide them away in the cobwebbed recesses of our minds, will surface with the faintest whiff of a familiar scent, or the tunes of a song, or even more powerful, a photograph. Other people touch us deeply. I wondered if I should wait until I’m at least middle-aged before I dared to express my opinions on relationships and the lasting effect they have on us…but I decided not to. Maybe I’m just more sentimental than most other people out there, but I can distinctly remember the feelings and emotions of my first crush; I don’t even remember how long ago. Maybe I was seven. I remember thinking, “When I grow up, I am going to marry this guy.” Well, I don’t even know if that guy still exists. But I’m pretty sure that if he suddenly came back into my life, I would be jolted with the memories of those once-upon-a-time little girl wishes and probably feel some sort of weird return of the old crush. We just can’t cut people out of our hearts; they linger, even if just in a faint ghost of a memory.
I know I’m being extremely allusive, and it’s because this whole subject has probably had the biggest and most long-lasting effect on my emotional, physical and mental state, next to my relationship with God. Oh, and there it is again—God is relationship. Then I can say fully that relationships ARE the biggest thing in my life. My actions, thoughts and feelings are entirely controlled by them. My life is led by my relationship with my family, with God, with that guy, or even with myself (not that I am schizophrenic—I just think we almost treat ourselves like another person—someone we know REALLY, really well and have to live with permanently). Living with oneself can sometimes be a nightmare.
I can remember the next person I liked, and how he gave me the biggest Toblerone bar I have ever seen in my entire life. I also wanted to marry him when I grew up. I thought he was a very mature 10-year-old. I think I broke the poor guy’s heart when he asked me to go with him to our junior high Formal and I told him yes and then the next day told him I wouldn’t. I had already started liking another boy, and didn’t realise this first crush still liked me. I spent a good two hours crying my heart out, the night he gave me that Toblerone chocolate. My ‘new’ crush had asked me to go with him to the Formal just an hour after the old crush had, and my heart wept inside as I told him I had already agreed to go with someone else. That was when I went to my room and sobbed. The next day I told them both I wouldn’t go with either of them (that was after I talked to my parents and my dad forbade me from going with anyone). This next crush was bad. Not bad as in he was bad, but bad as in the experience was bad. I will never understand how young human minds are so deceived into thinking we know it all when we know absolutely nothing. I was very convinced that THIS was the one I was to marry. I invested a lot, not necessarily physically, but emotionally.
Maybe it just went on too long, maybe it was because I was suicidal and would tell him about it, or maybe it was because I was just downright a monster to be with, but he told me he was tired of me; in a text. Honestly. I could rant for another whole blog about the stupidity of modern technology and how it messes with our relationships. But I’ll save that for another time. I didn’t think I would ever recover; in fact, I wanted to kill myself for most of the summer following that. I was deeply, deeply wounded, and I felt like I had lost a huge part of me. I was fifteen. And people told me I would get over him. “Just give it time.” Which is partly true. Time has healing properties. It smoothes things over, and softens sharp edges. But it doesn’t make you forget. It’s like putting Aloe Vera on a wound. The red, swollen wound will flatten out, and the mark will fade, but it won’t go away. They’re called scars for a reason. I try to remember now, when younger girls tell me about who they like, or who has a crush on them, that I can’t just dismiss their feelings as if they are too young and inexperienced to feel pain over a relationship. They’re hearts may be smaller and newer, but they still break.
I was so relieved the first time I was able to talk to that guy in a room alone, without feeling sick to my stomach and embarrassed and awkward. We’re not really friends anymore—just facebook friends. There was about a year where I was still hurting from that relationship and didn’t want to be close to anybody again. What a joke.
I grew close to one of my guy friends—one of my only friends, period, since I had alienated myself from most of my girl friends. He was kind, and gentle, and was the only one that I felt I didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t still hurting to. He seemed to understand that I was heart-broken and made an effort to show that he cared. He was amazing. I appreciated his friendship deeply, and since he would tell me about his other crushes, I had no expectations that he would even consider me in that way—until at some point he stopped talking to me about those other girls. Life is complicated. I’m sure I don’t need to describe how things progressed a bit too quickly, and before long I was dreaming, yet again, of one day marrying this guy. Time passed, life changed, I graduated from high school, and communication stopped. God had other plans, and made this clear to me when the guy told me he’d fallen in love with another girl. I’ll get over him—I’ve already been smearing on the Aloe Vera.
But then there are times when I’m the one breaking someone else’s heart, which is to me more painful. It hurts really badly. I just had to tell someone that I don’t like them the way they do me. When I said it wasn’t about him as a person; that he was godly and talented and kind…I had to look at his hurt eyes when he asked, what is it then? I had to hear him say how he couldn’t get me out of his mind, and he thought I was wonderful, and he resigned to the fact that I just didn’t feel the same way. I apologised for hurting him, and he said it wasn’t my fault. It’s not my fault that he wanted to maybe someday marry me; it’s not my fault that I don’t. Just like it wasn’t my fault I wanted to marry that guy when I was seven, or my friend’s fault for loving a different girl. Is it anybody’s fault? I think I know what it is. I know why we hurt so deeply for people and because of people. It’s because we were created to be intimate. God is a trinity—he himself is community, an intimate relationship. Love would not exist without a relationship, because in order to love, there has to be a receiver of love. God IS love. And God created man in His image—so WE love. We love God, and we love each other. Even when we fight it and refuse to accept or admit it, we all have a desire to love and be loved. We WANT to be intimate, and we cannot help pursuing it. Unfortunately, we seek fulfilment from human relationships, and they can’t fulfil. The intense longing way down inside us cannot be filled by other humans; only the God who is Love can fill that space. And He will fill it. We will continue to make scars, as we invest and live life—this life that isn’t easy. But that’s the best part—we won’t be stuck with our scarred bodies. One day we’ll have new bodies; new hearts and souls that can’t be scarred. Until then I’ll keep loving, and I’ll keep using Aloe Vera.
Along the Way 