I got and 80%
I should be proud, yes? But I'm not. I'm so annoyed and I don't know why.
Maybe it's because I poured my heart into this and felt pain and choked up tears as I wrote and then I get it back and there's pencil markings all over it.
For your perusal, here it is (Comment, please!):
Confessions: My Heart
What are you afraid of? Me? I’m afraid of a lot of things: spiders, the unknown, growing up. And the big one? Love. Weird, right? Who could be afraid of something so great? Something so beautiful? Something everyone is after? Well, I’ll tell you: it’s not just love in general that I’m afraid of, it’s not even the kind of love you feel for your friends. It’s that sort of love that has to do with when you start thinking about who you want to spend the rest of your life with. Everyone’s got it down in their heads like it’s supposed to be a Cinderella fairytale, but it’s not like that in reality.
You’re thinking, “She’s crazy. What is she, sixteen (Seventeen, actually--not that it makes a difference)? What does she know about the chemistry between two people called love?” In that regard, you might be right because as far as I’m concerned, I know nothing because I’ve experienced nothing. Sure, I’ve seen those movies about the two people that are either best friends or hate each other to the ends of the earth in the beginning and then, just before the credits roll, they’re falling head over heels for each other and end up walking off into the sunset together. Life isn’t really like the movies as far as I’m concerned, though. If it was, wouldn’t I look up at a guy and fall madly in love with him right then and there? Well, that hasn’t happened yet. As far as the books go, they aren’t all that original. They’re just like the movies: boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl likes boy (boy is probably a vampire), boy and girl fall in love. The end. But that’s the problem; media has got us thinking of how we think it should happen and not thinking of the realities that be. The reality being that it’s usually not easy, people get their hearts broken and get hurt, love isn’t perfect and sometimes it doesn’t show its face until it’s too late. Love doesn’t taste like sweet lollipops or sweet chocolate chips; sometimes it tastes like salt, metallic or something gone bad. It’s not an easy feeling, not just a four-letter word, it’s nothing simple. It’s ugly and beautiful at the same time. It makes me sick; positively and negatively.
I could say that I hate love, but I don’t think that’s quite it. I’m assuming that part of the reason I am so bitter about relationships is because I’ve never been in one. I have a big group of tight friends and every single one of them has been in a relationship, so, really, it makes me think of one question over and over again: Why haven’t I? Jealousy often rears its ugly head and that just complicates things for me. I over-analyze every glance that comes my way from the opposite sex and eventually end up far worse than when I get no attention at all and just find myself wondering why. I will admit that being the only one that hasn’t been in a relationship has its advantages. For one, I haven’t had to go through a break-up just yet and two, I can learn from other peoples’ mistakes. The major one is that I have a very good support group that is always there for me, no matter what. They don’t particularity agree with my current feelings for a certain boy and they’ve made sure that I know this, because there are no secrets between us, but they’re still standing beside me in case I hurt myself. They’ve been with me long enough to know that I’m not any good at this courting thing and they know it hasn’t worked out for me yet. They know I’m a big softy and that I shatter easily. They know me and that’s the main thing.
I ignored when they said run as fast as you can.¹ They’ve all told me to stop going after him, ‘they’ being the ones who will pick up the pieces if there are any in the end. They told me we didn’t go together. That we don’t. This boy that’s got me crazy was the last one I ever thought would. Shows how much I know. He’s a good guy, there are no questions about that, but could my hopes get anywhere? That is the real question. Am I wasting my time running after him? Is my heart tiring itself out over nothing? That’s what we’re all worried over. Does he know? Does he revel in the fact that my heart beats double-time when he gets close? Is he smiling sadistically behind my back at my pain, while he grins sweetly to my face and gives me a hug? I don’t know and perhaps I never will. As much as this feeling makes me float and jump and practically skip down those stupidly long school hallways, it also makes me want to tear my heart out just so I don’t have to feel anything anymore. I just wanna feel okay again.²
But which relationship is gonna make you feel okay again? Which one is more important than the other? Friends? Family? Significant other? I believe it would depend on the closeness of the relationship itself. Your friends might not always be there although you’d hope that they would be, but sometimes things happen and they end up not being around. Your family is your blood and they’re there to support you but sometimes that just doesn’t work out for whatever reason, because not everyone has the perfect family or the perfect circumstances. As for that significant other? You may be in love with them now, but do you know if it’s the real thing? Do you know it’s forever? Probably not. Maybe I’m just going through the beginnings of becoming a bitter old lady whose only love comes from the numerous cats (dogs, actually; I’m not a cat person) sitting on every available surface in the little house with chipped green paint, curled shingles and peeling wallpaper, but that’s just my view of things.
Crushes never come with realistic expectations. They’re like illusions and fairytales. You never think of the end.³ And why would you? Millions of people all want the same thing: someone else to care for and to be cared for by someone else. They want to give their heart away. Millions of people are just like me: wanting but afraid to give. So what do we do? We either risk it all and go for it, trying not to think of the possible consequences as we make a beeline towards that certain person of our affections or there’s the other option: we hide away until either our target comes to us, or we try and rid ourselves of these feelings so we don’t have to deal with it at all. Many of us have gone through it. We’re all human.
Love isn’t a bad thing, but it isn’t all perfume and roses, either. There’s another side to it other than the sappy love songs about being enchanted to meet you 4. There’s a side that is cruel, that makes your heart want to be ripped out, if it hasn’t been already. We all hope for it, we all want what we don’t have, because we are human and possess greed as well as love. But if it doesn’t work out, I dare ask: is it really better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?
¹ Song: Dear John—Taylor Swift
² Song: Mean—Taylor Swift
³ Blog Post: Crushes—K. Charette
4 Song: Enchanted—Taylor Swift
