Love you, mean it

Maybe he did mean it when he said I was pretty

To keep something from someone pains me inside. But to keep something inside of yourself for so long, and not be able to share it with anyone around you for fear or what they may say or how they may react, it plagues you. It has made me stop trusting what I can say about this matter altogether, and it has put me off ever falling in love again.

I like a boy, and I think he likes me back.

God, that sounds so juvenile.

Sometimes it is that simplicity that gives us hope to keep going, though. I recently posed the question in my subscribers chat (which you can join below, by the way) of what keeps you going when life gets hard?

Majority of the answers centred around believing everything happens for a reason, and that there are no coincidences in this life. I like to adopt this attitude as often as I can, although it has been difficult to navigate in some situations.

For example, when situations are uncertain, and there are two, or potentially more, outcomes. One where I leave feeling satisfied, and another where I leave feeling crushed. One that sees me end up with the boy of my dreams, another that sees me lose a 10+ year friendship. One where life feels okay, one where life feels like it might end.

But, why does it bother me so much?

I like knowing the answers to things, and I hate to be unsatisfied - always have, always will. As much as I will always be on the hunt to find out more, and bold in the pursuit of knowledge, I hate facing dilemmas, as it means consulting my moral compass - which needs its direction checking a lot more than I would like to admit. Making decisions that could really impact the next direction my life takes a lot out of me, in fact, it makes me weak. Not being able to share that with someone, though? It makes me feel powerless.

What I like even less than feeling unsatisfied is feeling powerless.

When I was thinking about big life decisions like choosing someone to spend the rest of your life with, only one person came to mind - him.

Now, a lot of questions came to mind too - have I really grappled with my sexuality all these years just to end up with a man? Have I really spent the last 12 years searching for love when it was there all along? Has he really liked me this whole time, so everyone who teased us was telling the truth? Was I the one he wanted, even when I convinced myself I could not possibly be? Why does it eat me up inside, the thought of him being with anybody else?

I came to the conclusion. I love him, that might be why.

Woof, that hit me. Let us take a minute and regroup.

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I have not told him, before you ask. I have not ever broached the subject, nor has he. We just bumble along our separate lives refusing to ever drag our bony fingers along the keyboards of our respective phones and think about crafting a message that cuts beneath the surface; instead we just streamline it by talking about work and plans after university.

He does not know how much I am dying to tell him.

I met him as a little girl nervous to join a new school full of other little girls and boys i did not know, and he was a little boy that followed me around the entire week, and the week after that, and the week after that. At the time, I found it mildly irritating that this little boy I hardly knew never wanted to leave my side; thinking about it now, I would give anything for him to follow me around today.

The older we got, the less time we spent together. Different classes, different schedules, different intellectual interests - him for sciences, me for humanities. He never lost that edge though, that edge of interest - interest in me, what I was doing, and more importantly, how I was doing. He watched me turn into a different person as I went through an abusive friendship, but came out the other side with me - his opinion of me never wavered.

I remember a message I received from him at one of the lowest points; it read something simple like ‘hey, you okay after this afternoon?’ it turned my day around. He had been there as the abuser hurled aggressive insults at me, and made me feel bad for not turning up to a lesson in the morning - after I replied that I was okay, I just felt quite numb, he remarked ‘I am always here if you need to talk’ and he was.

That is what got me - it was not just a sentiment, he meant it.

Joking around about my interests with me, learning the names of all my favourite celebrities, watching easy-to-follow shows with me - he was comfort in the form of a person. He made me feel okay again, and I will never forget how he did. I do not know if he still thinks of me and how low I was during that time of life, but if he does, I hope he realises how far I have come since; how he helped me.

As I reflect on why I have thought about him so much since I last saw him, I connect the dots between the feeling I have never really felt for another person before - unconditional love. Of course, I feel this for my family, but this was something I was born with, I have not had to learn it. But as I sit in my bedroom on those long summer evenings listening to songs that tell tales of loves that got away, I cannot think of anyone else but him.

I cannot think of anyone else but him. I love him.

Love is a confusing emotion for me to confront, mainly because it is one I have not felt this strongly before. I love my friends, I love my dog(s, past and present), I love my house, and I love rewatching Brooklyn Nine Nine for the 78th time - but they do not eat me up inside and consume me because I cannot have them.

It feels selfish to say I want him all to myself, after all I know what a popular man he is; it feels strange calling him a man, actually. The last time we saw each other, we were both 18, but we are both 22 now. We lead completely different lives - I am working full-time, living far away from my long-distance friends, and struggling with burnout; he is completing a masters degree, spending time with new friends, but maybe he is struggling too - I wish I knew.

Aine, just tell him. That is probably what you are screaming at your screen right now. If not, who’s side are you even on?

Kidding, of course. If I do not even have the strength to be honest, who am I to place that guilt in you..

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It took me a while to make that realisation that the obsession I feel, the affection I have, the excitement I get when he views my story to this day, it is because I love him. Maybe when I like his story he gets that excitement too, and maybe he told me I was pretty when the insecure 16-year-old me asked because he loves me too.

Maybe all those days he brought his Switch into school so we could play Mario Kart and nudged his iPad over to my side of the desk and turned on We Bare Bears was because he felt our connection too. That when his friends pushed him closer to me whilst we were talking, it was because they saw the spark when we could not - they knew we had something. Maybe his penchant for sitting next to me in every science lesson as teenagers meant a little more than a friendship.

Twelve years he has been in my life, and twelve years I have not wanted to truly be with anyone else. I have met boys along the way - they have never been like him. They have never cared, listened or stuck around like him.

I do not know how to break the divide that has been placed between us, and I do not know if we are destined to be together. The one thing I wish, though - I would never say those words common amongst star-crossed lovers;

Maybe in another life.

Maybe not in another life, because maybe we had it in this life - maybe we still do.

Thinking about the future scares me, as he may find that connection with someone that is not me - he may not realise how strongly I felt, or maybe he never thought I felt the same way, so chooses to move on. It haunts me as I sit in the dark, imagining him stood at the altar, but the bride making her way up to his proud stature is not me - it is the girl who could be honest with him. She could tell him how she appreciated him, she could love him out loud.

He might settle down and have a family, and lead a life, and forget all about me. Or he may be plagued by our love too - maybe he wishes we could have been honest with each other. He may hope that I am not walking down an altar to another groom in the future; he may hope I never move on from him.

A future of what-ifs and maybes, it is not what I want. I want decision, I want certainty. But, how can I face him - the conversation of a thousand emotions and a million feelings?

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There were four words I said about him on his birthday this year - love you, mean it. He did not see this, as I never posted it for him to see - I regret it.

I love him, and I mean it now. I do not want to be flippant, or dance around my feelings anymore. I love him, and that is what I mean. I just hope I find the strength to coax those words out of my throat so he can hear them, and hope he knows to say them back.

I will put the fears of someone knowing me inside out aside and remember it would be okay - he already knows me, and he stayed. I have found the emotion I was looking for, I just need to be honest about it now. I just need to share, just need him to know I have finally found what I was looking for.

Him.