It’s just before New Year and I decided to write this down, likely because I’m up at 5 am, and whenever I’m up this late thoughts start to bubble.

I’m going to write to you about my failed crush. I’ve been reluctant—I think—to admit that it can’t be real anymore. It feels wrong in a way to admit the ending of my crush before even getting to confess to her. And I don’t know if I’ll ever confess, I think the time for expecting it to do anything has passed. If I ever confess it’ll be after I know I’m fully over this. Overall, I think it revealed many hard parts about wanting to have feelings. I’ve been begging for months not to feel so empty and openly welcomed having a crush, something I haven’t had in forever even if it didn’t end well…and it didn’t. I was so confused the entire time, not fully my fault, and the clarity that comes in the aftermath just stings. Because it all becomes so painfully obvious, all the shortcomings. All the times my delusions might’ve actually just been delusions. Two posts ago I wrote about how it didn’t matter to label my feelings and truly it doesn’t, but now I know that I can. I am Connell from normal people when he tells Marianne that he never really knows how he’s feeling in the moment but when he looks back he can finally put a name to it.

Those signs I was looking for, to prove that I had a crush, they were there! I questioned it so much but I was babely but somehow not talkative enough, and she infiltrated my mind and all the smaller spaces and she still does. The nail in the coffin was the day, and the day after, I realized there was no version of me winning in this. It just hurt so bad that’s when I knew my feelings were real enough to be this painful. And it’s scary and feels so belittling to admit this person had such an effect on me when I’m not sure that I had an impacting one on her.

And I’ve talked about this a lot. I know some people are sick of listening to me. There are pages in my journal about my feelings and her, but it seems no matter how many times I write my way out, these feelings still bubble in me and froth and beg to be written out again and again. I’ve healthily thought about this but the problem is that it never changes the way I feel because there’s no reasoning my way out of that, I can only wait for it to dissipate. It’s funny, because now that I know I can’t have her I feel like I’m performing more than ever. performing to be funny, to be entertaining, and smart. And I could argue I’m all of those things anyway but I can’t help but think that right now in this moment of my life, I’m this way to spite her.

The last few months were the first I had started consistently praying, I do it less so now. This is no way of me asserting any spiritual beliefs that I have, I barely know what that would be but I think things got so warped I had believed I wanted her so bad I started to ask God for her. This isn’t true but it’s funny how I want to ascribe all these big grand gestures to her, as poets and artists do. I’ve been thinking a lot about what really hurt me so badly, and I think it’s a lot of things: a sense of failure, humiliation, rejection, but most importantly I feel like I have all these interesting parts of me all these pieces and all this love that I want to give and still, I cannot. I’ve written songs, poetry, blog posts, and journal entries about her and she can’t own these pieces of her in me. I’m the one that has to hold it. It hurts me that I cannot put these feelings, this feeling of a basic human want onto someone else, someone to share it with.

But all in all, I would want to go through the pain and suffering again to come through the other side.

I’ve had a hundred thoughts about her, they’re not the same as the ones I had a month or two ago. I need you to know this is not me being pathetic. I’m not dwelling on what ifs, or just maybes, or pondering that I still have a chance. None of those things matter I don’t see a future where I move forward with that crush and have self-respect. I don’t wish for her. I wish these lingering feelings of pain, of hurt, and other things to pass me by quickly. I only replay things that happened, they sting when they creep into my mind and I can hate her for a hundred things she did. I can hate her for maybe leading me on, for her losing feelings before I even got the chance to. I can hate her for calling me cute, for calling me pleasant, for talking to me so much, for hanging out with me, for us both dancing around this. And that’s okay. I can hate her and still not hate her at all. There are a hundred things I’m still scared about moving forward but, that doesn’t mean I’m eager to sit by, so I’m hoping next year I won’t.

I won’t be under the table on New Year's with 12 grapes trying to scarf them down within 25 seconds of the first clock strike manifesting my magnificent love life. but as always, even as disappointing as it can be, I’ll be optimistic