“Because what’s worse than knowing you want something, besides knowing you can never have it?” 
― James Patterson, The Angel Experiment

I am sure most of us have been in a situation where we have fallen for someone we could not quite have or had but didn’t truly have. This is something even I have come to face in my life thus far.

Loving someone that you cannot have is one of the most painful things that you can experience. It takes a lot out of you and leaves you with virtually nothing. I loved someone at one point with all that I could and it was not enough. This person still, even now, has never been able to show me the kind of raw emotion that I have shown them.

Due to that, the relationship became and off and on situation for us. It was good and then bad and then even worse. Looking back now I know it wasn’t worth the years I wasted but at the time this person was my whole life. I let my love for this person consume who I thought I was. This person never truly let me in. I was always left out in the cold.

“Because, if you could love someone, and keep loving them, without being loved back . . . then that love had to be real. It hurt too much to be anything else.” 
― Sarah Cross, Kill Me Softly

While I would like to believe that this person had feelings for me on some level I just can’t. The things I had to go through proved to me that was not the case. These kinds of things leave you feeling odd even after you have completely parted ways and years have passed. When we walk by one another now on those rare occasions, this person doesn’t look back or think twice and I pretend not to see them.

Even now I still get this sunken feeling inside my stomach when I see this person. Have you ever felt this way? No, you don’t love this person anymore and you no longer want to be with them but you still feel something. Personally, I feel it stems from a lack of closure or anger that was never expressed but I cannot speak for us all.

Loving someone you cannot have really leaves you empty and it is hard to move on from. When you have to say goodbye to someone or don’t even get the chance to it changes you. You may not want to admit it but you still think of that person be it daily or merely from time to time.

Life is silly in that sense, it brings us to people only to tear us apart. Maybe our timing was off? Perhaps in another life, we’d end up together, who knows? While we all work towards the future letting go of the past and all of the “could have been’s” is a lot easier said than done it is something we CAN do.

“There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

That being said, I hope you find some comfort knowing you are not the only person who has been there. You are not the only person who gets that empty feeling inside. When someone who meant the world to you turns into the stranger, it has an effect on your life. That much I know is true. You can wish you had never met this person all you want but the truth is, you did.