The Hurdles of the Heart

    It is one of the hardest things in life; dealing with the matters of the heart. 

    Normally, I save my blog posts for Saturdays. I have a few of them to catch up on and backdate, but they will be up within the next few days. But I needed to get this out of my journal pages and out of my head and my aching heart before I lose my mind. So consider this a sort of content warning for those who do not like to read this kind of stuff. 

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    The first hurdle was fifth grade. 

    The first time I truly desired to make my feelings known to someone else was as a child. I had a crush on someone who was much faster and stronger than I was. I wanted to express those feelings as a secret admirer. I hoped that with a tucked Valentine card under a student's desk chair, all would be acknowledged and life could go on. Heck, maybe I would have the first guy I actually wanted to be around as a boyfriend if he figured out who I was. 

    Instead, what I got is humiliation. I got a finger-pointing, peer-shaming, teacher-mocking level of humiliation that sent me under my desk in tears. All it took was one person pointing a finger to send my entire fifth grade class into the dark spiral of gossip and mockery. The boy I wanted to share my feelings with ended up shredding the Valentine heart and throwing it away in disgust. I prayed that this humiliation would only last a day. It seems like that was the only relief I was granted. It came at the price of a long scar and a hesitation that still carries a few threads of itself into my current life. 

    The second hurdle was in eleventh grade.

    It took me a little longer to realize that I had any sort of feelings for the person I was admiring. The problem was this person was older than me. Not by much, but enough that it mattered. On top of that, it was someone who was a student teacher for my band. He came in and brought a new perspective on life that I truly admired; one that spoke of a professional honesty, yet also a quiet rebellion against all of the conventions that he deemed to be useless or absurd. My time with him as my student teacher for jazz band and marching band was enjoyable. It wasn't until a jazz festival competition that I found myself at a crossroads that I would come to over and over again after this first incident. 

    Sure, there was something there for me. But I couldn't express it. There was no way. I didn't need to be humiliated again. I didn't want to be. I didn't want to make things awkward, especially because I assumed (rightly so, for a high school student) that it would be awkward to share that kind of personal statement with someone who definitely did not feel the same. With no outlet, my feelings gave way to an obsession. I spent as much time as I could hanging out and chatting with him. I even learned that he had a ska band and went to the couple of concerts that my parents were willing to drive me to. 

    Eventually, it was my mother that talked sense into me. My mother reminded me that my feelings could never be shared because they would be deemed "inappropriate" and not taken lightly. It put me in a place of extreme guilt and shame for feeling anything. 

    After this hurdle, I fell into a string of boyfriends or connections that were essentially hollow. Most of them landed in my lap with little preparation. Not knowing what to do, I accepted their advances and took my place as their girlfriend. Sure, I had some attraction, but that attraction was somewhat short lived or very "flash-in-the-pan" style of attraction. They gave me the feeling of being loved by someone, but every time I was away from them I felt abandoned. Eventually, I would feel that feeling of abandonment when I was in their company, which would lead me to break up with them. 

    To those men, I am so sorry that I did this to you. I am sorry that the scarring I had only lead to a half-hearted relationship and barely any level of true commitment. I am sorry I broke things how I did. I am sorry for all of it. If there was any sacrifice I could make to rid either one or both of us of the pain I caused, I would make it in a heartbeat; even if that cost was my own life. 

    This third hurdle is both in 2017 and now. 

    During my time in college, I found myself enthralled by the personality and adventures of one of my creative writing professors. It amazed me that he went through so much, had been on so many adventures, and generally seemed to come out of it with an amazingly human perspective of it all. He had an aura of pure acceptance and a love for people about him every time I had a class with him, or if I went to his office to discuss classwork or just to say hi on my way to talk to another professor. Eventually, he and I (and a few other friends of mine) started going to poetry readings with each other. We even went to the book release part of his at the college. My friends and I bought copies of his book and he signed them for us after class one day. The messages for each of us were sweet. Mine felt as if he touched on something that I didn't think I had in me: the characteristics of a good friend. Over time, we went to more things together and even had a few times where he and I would meet up for a meal between classes just to check in on each other. 

    But now I feel like I've lost that. Friends of mine from college (and a few of my online friends here) could tell you how many times I've rambled about him (with a fake name or descriptor, of course; I'm not completely cold-hearted yet) and about how I've felt. Even my family hears about him and is kind of getting sick of it (from what I can tell; then again, I overthink and over-analyze a lot things out of a fear of rejection). He disappeared for a well-deserved adventure. Since the last time I saw him in about 2017/2018, I have the same conflicting crossroad, even after I've admitted to him that I had some feeling and I knew he didn't. 

    Today I sit here, lost and at a loss. I know all I can do is share how I feel, but even then I worry about what will happen afterward. I'm worried I will lose another friend or connection that I was hoping would come back. I am really hoping what I do can spur some sort of resolution to the noise in my head. So I spoke my piece to him in an audio message. And now I speak this into the Void. Maybe the Void will answer me; maybe it will remain silent and just take all of the pain and shame at all of this mess. 

    All of these hurdles and periods in between have taught me a lot of things. At first, I learned all the wrong things. Up until 2019, I thought no one wanted to hear how I felt, what I thought, or anything that spilled out of my mind. I still have a lot of that inside of me as a fear of rejection. But now I also have a new perspective that some people would rather hear it and would rather have me speak my mind and my heart. 

    So here I am, screaming into the Void. Scribbling down as much of my pain and hurt into this post as my spirit feels like sharing. I don't want to go much further and incur any sort of drama or further guilt from oversharing. I will not ask you -the reader- to endure that. All I ask is for prayers from the spiritual and religious types, and a positive thought from everyone else. That's all I can muster the courage to ask for. The rest I have to leave up to the blossoming connection between me and the spiritual journey I have been on. 

    I hope to come out of this a much better person. I wish to gain a new form of love for both myself and someone else who is willing to share that with me. Until then, I work and wait. I rest and regather my broken pieces, shattered by the hurdles I've gone through.