How I wish I knew who wrote the passage below. I found it a few months ago, not sure where exactly but I copied it to my notes to reread later. Going back to research it now, it appears all over the place on the web. Blogs, articles, etc. etc. This woman (I do assume a woman) who penned this I feel must have opened my mind and put in words exactly who I am. And I thank her.

I am at a quandary at this moment. I have fallen hopelessly in love with someone who I have now come to realize can never, in their own words “reach the level that I am at”. And it hurts…God it hurts. I don’t think in all my earthly years of existence has something shaken me, broken me, and devastated me so. The most painful part about it though is not that he doesn’t reciprocate what has welled up so immensely in my heart but the decision that I am putting into motion which will likely lead to the loss of who has become my best friend. Yes I have best friends but he is different, so different.

He has questioned my feelings, pointing out that possibly I feel this way because I have never had someone treat me as he has. Asks me if I have thought about this, had a heart to heart with my soul. It honestly infuriates me as I have had this conversation with myself time and time again over the past year. And no, no that is not why I love him. I love him, plain and simple. I love him for him as I wrote months ago. I know how I feel. I have only told two other men in my life those precious words. I don’t throw them around lightly.

He is my soul mate and I knew it the day that I met him. That one person that completes that missing piece of my soul that I have wandered this earth lost and in search of. I know people say you don’t know these things right away and it takes time but I am telling you something happened in my soul the day he walked in my life. Some strange force within me that I have never, ever felt before. Call me crazy, there really aren’t words to explain it.

I am terrified of losing him but I don’t see another way except to end things. There is no going back, no salvaging what was before as I cannot forget, turn off what I feel. I knew what I was getting into. I knew that he was incapable of loving someone whole heartedly and without hesitation. I knew that nothing would change him and honestly I never would want to change him. And I allowed myself to fall, to be vulnerable, to love, and to feel again after being numb for so long.

I know that I am difficult. I know that I am emotionally detached. I know that I have a hard time communicating how I feel but damnit I have tried. I have learned and slowly I am getting better at it. This whole time I have fought the instinct to run. Run to avoid the  hurt that I always know lurks ahead. To protect my heart that I kept so tightly bound. And here I sit now in that dark, heartbroken place that I have spent a lifetime trying to circumvent.

–SnarkyCoppertop

The Woman Who Has Been To Hell And Back Is Not Easy To Love.

Many have tried. Most have failed.

The weak need not attempt, for it will take more strength than you even know you possess; more patience, more resilience, more tenacity, more resolve. It requires a relentless love, one that is determined and not easily defeated.

For the woman who has been to hell and back will push you away. She will test you in her desire to know what you are made of, whether you have what it takes to weather her storm. Because she is unpredictable—at times a hurricane, a force of nature that rides on the fury of her suffering; other times a gentle rain, calm, still and quiet.

When she is the gentle rain that falls in time to her silent tears, love her.

When she is the thunder and lightning and ferocious winds that wreak havoc, love her harder.

She is a contradiction, a pendulum that will forever swing between fear of suffocation and fear of abandonment, and even she will not know how to find the balance between the two. Because today, although she will never tell you, she will feel insecure. She will want you to stay close, to tuck her hair behind her ear and kiss her on her forehead and hold her in the strength of your arms. But tomorrow she will crave her independence, her space, her solitude.

For while you have slept, she has been awake, unable to slow her thoughts, watching clocks and chasing time, trying to make the broken pieces fit, to make sense of it all—of where and how she fits. She fights her demons and slays her dragons, afraid if she goes to sleep they will gain the upper hand, afraid if she goes to sleep she will no longer be in control. Tomorrow she will be tired, and your presence will smother her. She will need only herself.

When she reaches out to you, love her.

When she pushes you away, love her harder.

New situations and places and people and experiences will make her anxious. She will be fiercely independent and long to overcome her fears, all the while as terrified as a small child alone in the big world. Sometimes she will need to be courageous, to prove to herself she has what it takes. Other times she will need you to take her hand and hold it firmly in yours. Sometimes she may not know what she needs, and you will need to read her like a book with worn pages and a tattered spine and be what she needs when she does not know herself.

When she is brave and steps into the world on her own, love her.

When she is scared, but refuses to take your hand, love her harder.

She will live in fear of not being enough and always being too much—an endless battle to find the middle ground. Ashamed if the scale falls one way or the other, ashamed to be herself for no one has ever loved her both when she is small and also when she is tremendous.

When she feels too much, love her.

When she feels not enough, love her harder.

Sometimes she won’t hurt and the light will shine from her eyes and her laughter will be a rare and precious melody. But sometimes she will hurt so much from the trauma still in her body; she will ache, she will feel pain and anguish. The light will grow dim and the music will fade.

When she is the light, love her.

When she is the darkness, love her harder.

She will always love you with caution, with one foot out the door. For she does not understand a love with no conditions, one that is powerful enough to withstand hard times. She cannot allow herself to fully trust in your love, and she will keep parts of her heart hidden—the parts that have been hurt the most, the parts she can’t risk being hurt again when she has worked so hard to stitch them together.

She will always watch, wait and expect you to leave first. And when you don’t, she has a truth written upon her heart that says you will—it’s only a matter of time, for everyone who loves her leaves her. And so she will seek to sabotage the relationship; she will seek to destroy it, she will seek to leave first, she will seek to hurt you before you can hurt her. This is how she stays in control, this is how she survives, how she will ensure she will not get hurt again.

When she wants to love you, love her.

When she wants to hurt you, love her harder.

Being out of control terrifies her. Don’t ever make her feel powerless, trapped or without her freedom. She needs to dance barefoot under enormous blue skies, to feel sand between her toes, to run with wolves as the wind weaves magic through her hair, for here is where her healing is found. Never clip her wings, for if she has the freedom to fly, she will always come back to you.

Love her when it’s easy, and love her harder when it’s not.

Love her in a way that will defy all she has ever known love to be.

Love her because you understand with every fiber of your soul the gift of her love, what it has cost her to offer you her fragile heart.

She does not need you. She has chosen you.

Because you have what it takes to survive the storm.

Because even when she doesn’t know how to love, you know how to love harder.

–Anonymous