She wanted to know what it felt like to have someone love her.
Not the love given by a mother and a father or family and friends or even a pet. She was rich in that kind of love, given to her well before she even came to this world. The love of family and friends encompassed her, molding and guiding her through her journey in life. It's rather unfair to complain of possessing such love, acting selfish in a way by hoarding it for herself and using it to become the person she had grown up to be. This love she lived in could only be the sweetest of dreams to someone else. Of the billions of people in this world, not all of them could grow up with such luxe love at their fingertips. While some were born into the luck of money, she was born into the blessings of family love -- she obtained no silver spoon in her mouth, but instead was born with gold in her heart. So, how is it that she could feel this alone in a sea of endless fulfillment?
Because while the love of family and friends was warm and comforting, it still lacked in the one thing she craved the most. She wanted this one thing so bad that it left her with a damaging hurt whenever she thought about it, reached for it, tried to touch it, falling just short of it or not even coming in close enough despite her efforts.
This made her feel like a child still, sitting at the kids table while the adults mingled amongst themselves discussing and sharing in those topics that children were not privy to, but to her surprise, she was an adult too and unable to relate to those conversations at hand. The older she got, the more this bothered her and the more this bothered her, the angrier she became and the angrier she became, the more closed off she made herself because in her mind, she was undesirable to those of the opposite sex. Hate began to consume her.
She had never found herself on the receiving end of someone's crush or envy. Instead, she was the friend helping the friend to achieve that status and gain the relationship. In her 31 years on this planet, she was never once asked to join him for coffee or dinner. Rather, she found herself giving him advice on how to broach the subject of inviting another out for such things. And she wondered what that was like and if anyone was doing the same, but for her. But as they kept passing her by, she realized that, no, they were not.
All of her friends were in relationships, at every level of the word's definition -- dating, engaged and married. She watched them all go from being single, to happily meeting someone, to the excitement of dating, the joy of engagement and finally the bliss of marriage. Yet, here she stood, watching from the side, never able to participate in the game.
They would tell her stories about it and they always sounded so wonderful that she thought of what it must feel like to have that sort of grandeur in her life. Stories turned into evidence as she witnessed the truth of couples in love all around her. It seemed so unattainable as the years crept on and the time flashed by and one by one her friends got to experience that milestone of life by wearing a white gown. Everywhere she turned, everywhere she looked, another ring made it onto another finger or someone else was changing their relationship status from "alone" to "with someone."
She just wanted to know.
What must it be like to be able to share in all the things she adored with someone else who adored the same or didn't, but would anyway because they cared and loved her enough to want to. And she didn't even want the biggest requirements of what made up a relationship because she had given up on that a long time ago. It was apparent to her that she would never be able to attain such nice things. She was willing to settle for the little things, but even those seemed too expensive for her to have. The little things were what made the bigger things possible, like holding someone's hand while walking down the street or staying up late and watching some stupid movie together, but enjoying the company of each other. Even something as mundane as falling asleep next to someone and waking up to them the next day... And in this day in age, a simple text message telling her "good morning ;)." While she was not keen on the idea of pet names, she would be sure to cave if the right man called her "love," "sweetheart," or "baby." She wanted to know the touch of a man's hand on the small of her back or the curve of her hip and even his fingers through her hair that would lead to sweetest of touches of his lips on hers. And it was much more than that. She wanted to do things for him too, take care of him and show him how much she valued him as much as he did her. Because her heart is of the finest gold and she wanted nothing more than to share it with him and give him all of her.
But these are the little things that lead to something bigger and that was not in her cards.
Life has a plan for her and knowing the love outside of family and friends was not part of the path chosen for her. Every time she knocked on that door, it never opened and because she wanted it so much, maybe even too much, she moved to the next door, knocked again and still no answer. And with every unopened door, she fell deeper into the darkness of loneliness, hiding herself away and sheltering herself from the hurt, building her wall not only around herself, but the heart of gold she possessed within her. Although this heart was made of pure gold, it ached for something more and she only built the wall higher around it, in an attempt to stop it from wanting so much of what she could not provide.
Behind the walls, the darkness will soon consume this heart, so deeply that even she will not be able to find it.
