the greatest high and the worst feeling ever

upon meeting Mr. Raion 8 months ago i knew i would like him. it’s an insufferable feeling knowing that you’re drawn to someone who you can’t possibly be with, but you know you’ll pine for it anyways. Mr. Raion is sunshine, but one that’s almost too unbearable, he’s a golden retriever who’s a little mischievous. he stands exactly 5inches above me but has the presence and the charm and the charisma of a giant. with just a simple glance he had me sprung and i need him out of my system if he can’t be mine.

i have had a lot of crushes. in my family there are strings of short courtships. i have an aunt who married after 6 months, my own parents conceived me too shortly into their own meeting, and almost every love story tragic or not starts this way in my family. loving and falling hard is genetic for me. he is different though. you can see someone on a regularly scheduled program and not even really notice them. i knew i liked him, he’s sexy and strong and intelligent and well spoken, but i didn’t think much of him.

for the first four months of knowing him i didn’t have the intense butterflies or the blushing schoolgirl energy about him. he existed as an obvious. who could not love him, how could one not love him? he was consistent and diligent and i don’t see him for much more than the surface. i had bigger fish to fry than to go goo goo gaga over a man everyone knows is hot and sexy and perfect and smart and sweet. trying to get used to this city and trying to find my footing in my home and in my work and in my life i was strict on my boys are entertainment not serious. i think subconsciously i kept him away from this so i wouldn’t associate him with this phase. i wanted to mature and to grow before i considered him. i wanted to become the kind of girl he could want, that he could see himself with.

when he left briefly my heart fractured i couldn’t understand it at first. had i liked him, of course, but people come and go. people leave and pick up and move on and we cherish the time, but when we dwell on what could’ve been and what was we miss what could be and what is. so after a couple weeks of hoping to see him. waking around his campus and the park in frigid temperatures praying to catch even a glimpse i was still in denial. he’s Mr. Raion, he’s bigger than life and bigger than the small world i have for myself. he will touch a million lives and see places i could only dream of. he was so far up on a pedestal he wasn’t even a real person. out of sight, but not at all out of mind.

then on an early morning he came back and there it was. part of me felt complete. even if he could never be mine i could still have this part of him. i could have my mornings before a soul crushing day. i could smile at him and ask all about his life and his dreams and aspirations. you can’t just jump into these things though. so slowly but surely i asked everyone about these things. i took friends i was more comfortable with and used them as a ports before i could finally visit Isla de Raion. i don’t get much time at Isla de Raion. the ferry opens before i wake and closes after 4 short hours, but oh this glorious two or so hours where i get to just know him and be near him. i bask in his glorious light. i hope and i pray that maybe one day he could feel glow in my moonlight and want to bask in it.

it just doesn’t seem possible. a girl like me gets told to quiet down and to cut parts of herself off. i don’t get the prince charming. i wear 27 bridesmaids dresses and support the love that everyone around me deserves. i pine and dream of love and i know i’ll get it someday, but i wish it was with him. i wish it was now. i wish i was bold enough to tell him and not just write about him anonymously. i’m not bold and strong and willing to brush off his rejection so easily. i will live with that what ifs because it would hurt to feel his sunlight turn away from me. it would hurt to know he never meant to shine it down on me.

having a crush on Mr. Raion takes up so much space in my mind i can’t even begin to act normal. I have a brash personality that takes no prisoners, it tells you love me or not but i won’t beg you to stay. i am an acquired taste by all counts. i am talkative, i am long winded, i am stubborn, i am loud, and i don’t know how to act or deal with love. everytime i see him i freeze up. my mind runs wild and says whatever it can conjure up to get his attention. i giggle and mess up my work and smile from coast to coast. i shy away from him or i make a snarky joke. i do what i can to get a reaction out of him. if he’s happy or upset or annoyed or silly i want all the reactions. i want to know every thing about him. i want to fit into his worlds. i want to be enough for him without changing who i am, changing what i am.

the worst part of Mr. Raion is i could never give him peace. i couldn’t be what he wanted. he is miles ahead of me in maturity and in grace. he presents such a calm demeanor that i could never possess. he chooses his words wisely and takes care to speak with intention. i could never be his quiet, peaceful sunny wife. the fire i was born with will die with me. it will fuel me and keep me warm all my days but it will burn others even when i mean for it not to. i don’t want to shut up. i don’t want to be a different person and it’s soul crushing to know that for him it’s not me.

for all the boatloads of self love i’ve taught myself to have, for all the affirmations and promises i make to myself, for all the love i have in me for others i worry i’ll never have someone who views me this way. how dearly do i want to be viewed truly as i am. how dearly i want to be seen to my bones. how dearly i’ve tried to see others to their core. i remember my very first crush in my life. he was a year older than me and a classroom assistant to my kindergarten class. his name was norman and he wore buckle shoes that i thought were girly, but i liked him anyways. i’ve been a giggly girly girl since birth and i still recall giggling at the passing glance of him or when he would hand papers out to my class. he’s the first name on my eternal list of crushes. a list so long that it spans nearly two decades and a move across the country.

i love love. i love the action of love, the consideration it gives you for others, the joy of taking part in a humanistic process. what are we as humans if not acts of love. even if for a brief moment 21 years ago my parents so loved each other that they created me. they loved me so much they put up with each other for 20 more years. they loved me so much they would fight for me against even myself. when you love someone you want the best for them even if they don’t see it. when you love someone they become part of you. they are a part of you. two becomes one, you and i become we, we integrate ourselves and intersect ourselves into each others lives as an act of love.

i’ve seen love and i know love. i know my parents love me. i know my sister loves me. i know my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandfathers and grandmothers love me. how much of this is out of duty? how much love is just simply unsaid, demanded almost. of course you must love your family. even when you hate them. even when they’ve wronged you it takes a lot to just disregard them. it takes a lot of intentional disregard to not love someone that is flesh and blood. that is as a part of you as you are of them. what i find is harder is loving those whose blood is not the same as my own. we’ve fought wars over this. we’ve left people behind because of this. we walk past and ignore and harm people everyday because of this.

i keep that list of all the names of boys i’ve ever felt this soul crushing love for to remind myself that i am capable of loving. to remind myself that they’ve never loved me back. to remind myself that i’m 1/51 for reciprocate feelings and 0/51 for the action of love. it’s a form of self harm almost. to constantly look back at all the boys whose only crime was not seeing me a more than a friend. to somehow punish them for existing. i’ve thought nothing of this list for so long. only questioning it when i had a new notch in my belt to add, but Mr. Raion makes me question why i even consider looking back. that’s not me anymore, that version of myself doesn’t exist in boston. she doesn’t exist in baby adult alzie. so it’s my own limiting beliefs that keep me stuck.

in a separate article meant for april i wrote the most vile things about myself. i was in the bouts of self loathing and depression and i’ll never publish the piece, but when reflecting on it there’s so much more to me than just what meets the eye. i am capable and worthy of love exactly as i am. that’s what most frustrating about a crush is that they just don’t see it. how do you bare your soul to someone who barely knows your name. how do you mesh yourself into the life of someone who spends half their perceivable time with you flabbergasted and confused by your existence.

i think i’ll always be terrified of telling someone i love them for the first time. maybe even the first ten times. i don’t even believe that im in love with him, but i could be. i want to be rational as rational as i could possibly be about him. not only for myself, but for the alternate reality that is with him. it would be too crazy and too foolish to say ive liked you since i meant you and the more and more that i get to know you the less rational thoughts i can form about you or near you. if i loved you less i truly would be able to talk about it more. all i know outside of this is an attempt to be sane and honest and rational, but i’m not capable with him.

it’s maddening, it’s sickening. i hate my job and yet i religiously show up hours early just to see his face. to get a glimpse of his smile. i hate him so much but all i can think about is him. all i think about is what his parents are like (they must be kind and good people to have raised a man like him) and what his childhood was like (i hope he was loved and adored and had many friends) and where he sees himself in 10 years (i hope it’s wrapped in the arms of his lover even if it’s not me). but i don’t love him, i swear i dont, i can’t love him. loving him and never getting to truly know him would crush my soul. it would send the spiral further. if Mr. Raion were to read this and clearly decipher who it were so obviously about i wouldn’t want him to let me know. because he would have perfectly rational and reasonable response if he didn’t feel the same and that would hurt worse.

so as lovers come and go, friends break up and get married, and i begin a new life and he begins his own i hope he doesn’t crush me. i hope he just doesn’t acknowledge my feelings, if he knows i hope he doesn’t let me know he knows. unless there’s the tiniest glimmer of hope. i won’t hold out for it. so i’ll set him free not embarrassing myself or him. i wouldn’t know how to get the words out and i wouldn’t want to hear when he says no. the highs are enough to recover from the lows (this is the lie i’ll tell myself to keep moving its all i know).