Butterflies & Ravens

I don't even know where to start...

I fell in love.  Unexpectedly and hopelessly in love.  

I flew back from visiting Miles last week.  It was nine days of emotion, surprises and confusion.  I hadn't expected to be drawn to him when he walked through the door at the airport, I genuinely hadn't, but I was.  Not because of how he looked, but because he had taken a leap of faith and here he was, the boy with anxiety standing in front of the girl with confidence issues and his smile took my breath away.

I can't really bring myself to type out the detail, partly because my heart can't take it, and partly because this time, I didn't want to share my 'something special'.  How ironic is that.

Tonight bloggers came the harsh reality.

When we parted ways and I got on the plane things were left with so many things whirling round my head.  He hadn't wanted to commit to giving things a go saying the question was too big for his anxiety.  A lack of click.  He liked me more than before I had arrived, and had explained his feelings emotions would drop after I left.  The more time we spent together the more he liked me, but he didn't want me to take on the burden of making a go of things if they didn't work out down the line.  Ordinarily I would have taken it all as a giant neon sign, but knowing all of him, I didn't want to shut a door that might just be a little out of reach due to head space and challenges I will never fully understand'; challenges he battles every day.

I didn't get the giant click either, but there was no need. He was there, standing right in front of me.  The boy that had called us soul mates, had told me he loved me, had read me to sleep over and over again, could calm me even when the world was tipped on it's head, and the ONLY person in the whole wide world that I had ever opened my world to (nothing hidden).  He knew my hopes and dreams for the future (even the embarrassing ones I sometimes struggle to admit to myself), he knew my sexuality (every murky corner), my health, my past, my relationship history, and he hadn't run away.  Every single inch of my life had been opened up, handed over, and his response... To tell me that he loved me.  To call me babygirl.  To make me smile from the inside.

I believed every single thing he said.  Trusted all the things he sent me.  

I'm such a fool.

I should have realised he was just playing at hallmark boyfriend.

I thought I had found the one, the one that people talk about, the one that you can be 100% yourself with, the one that you hope exists but never actually believe it. The one you can sing in the shower with, dance around the kitchen with, walk along the beach in your jogging bottoms and no makeup with, the one that will kiss you on the forehead, pull you in close and tell you that everything is going to be ok when the world has you on your knees.  

I thought he saw me the same way I saw him. 

I've always been self conscious about the way I look, and 101 people in my life will tell me I'm stupid, but the reality is that he and I were in the same place. Nothing at all changed... except for me standing in front of him.  When I asked if it was how I looked he told me he had known how I looked before I went and that there had been no surprises.

I stood in front of him and while I stayed the same, everything changed.

Since getting back I have circled things 1000 times, was it his anxiety stopping us?  Had he been honest when he said he liked me more?  Did I just need to take a different role this time?  Did he just need to know I wouldn't run away at the first sign of a struggle?

I put myself out there, I couldn't walk away without making sure.  I had to tell him that I would move the world to stand by his side.  That we could go as slow or as fast as he wanted, that time didn't matter because if he let me, I would be standing there till the end of time.  We could take on the world one step at a time, that I would hold his hand on the long road if he would only let me.

He updated himself as single and looking the same place we met today; less than a week since hot tears ran down my face as I flew away and he told me 'maybe this won't be it...'

When I told him I didn't understand he told me I was overthinking it.  

I've learnt so much about anxiety since meeting Miles and while I made so many mistakes while we spoke, he always said I had tried to understand more than anyone else he had met before.  Anxiety... the world of barriers, worst case scenarios and overthinking.  Not once did I tell him he was overthinking, being irrational, being stupid.  Never once did I think it.  It is his world of chaos and no other words would be as stupid or cut as deep as those... So why did he think it was ok to say them to me?

Why is it that the broken girl always gets her heart smashed against the wall.  

So many times I had sat and listened as he began to spiral, his head out of control.  Breathing down the phone, calming him, letting him know it was all ok, that he was ok, that it seemed crazy right now and that I knew he wasn't alright, but that the storm would pass and I would sit there as long as it took for his thoughts to settle and his heart to stop beating out his chest.  'Overthinking it'.  I would never have expected those words from him...

I didn't think it was possible for me to fall in love again, let alone in the way that I did, completely open and vulnerable.  No secrets, no surprises.  Just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.

Overthinking. Stupid. Ugly. Overweight.  Ugly.  Stupid.  Ugly.

Life is hard, and putting myself out there and stepping outside the box never seems to work out.  I don't want people to notice me anymore, I'd rather be invisible. I'm going to do every single thing I can to ensure I fade into the background, personality and physical.  Introverted mind, broken but small body.  Small... 

I've made such a fool of myself.  I had no idea I would be such a let down in person.  I should have known.  I was so incredibly stupid to think I would find magic.  I was so stupid to think I could have found someone that would like me for me. Someone honest.  Someone that would look out for me, look after me no matter what happened. Someone who thought I was worth the risk.  Someone that would always, always look out for me and after my heart no matter what, no matter which eventuality. Stupid to think I would be something other than not being enough with my soul laid bare.

I fell in love with his soul.  His beautiful broken soul.

I don't think he will ever realise where I was or where his dismissive words have taken me.

I wish you could wish yourself into non-existence. I don't need to learn anymore, experience anymore, find out anymore.  I've felt hurt too many times.  I'm done.

The Pretty Reckless - You

click for final soundtrack